Bill O’Reilly, executive director of the Chelsea Senior Center, recently updated the Chelsea City Council on the activities that have taken place during the last year.
Examples of how we provide for area seniors and others in the community
- Meals on Wheels never stopped and continues to provide over 500 meals per week – that’s over 28,000 meals just since COVID hit.
- Vaccinations – Working with St. Joe’s Chelsea, we were able to schedule vaccinations for over 200 local seniors and where needed, we provided transportation. As part of this, we telephoned nearly all of our over 1,000 members and through this effort learned that over 90% of our members have been vaccinated or are scheduled.
- Wellness calls – our staff and volunteers have performed hundreds of telephone calls to homebound seniors in the past year to see how they are doing and addressing their needs.
- Remote Activities – Though on-site programs paused for the most part, we have been able to offer many programs remotely and outdoors to keep seniors engaged.
- Transportation – Through our Vital Seniors grant, we continue to fund the ROAM bus which we have funded for WAVE to operate on our behalf. And we are pleased to introduce the Ann Van.
- Funded by the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation & Glacier Hills Legacy Fund / Vital Seniors Initiative
- Capital Improvements – Wanting to pay it forward and support local businesses, we are in the process of spending tens of thousands of dollars for new equipment, painting, carpeting, etc. and 100% of this have been contracted though Chelsea based businesses.
- Community Partnerships – Our board has made a commitment for this year to work even closer with other area non-profits and senior service providers to do all we can together for our community. We’re already working closely the Chelsea School District, the Chelsea District Library, WAVE, Faith in Action, St. Joe’s, Silver Maples, CRC, Five Health Towns and many others to make a difference for all.
- Reopening for on-site activities – Though we realize that we are not yet out of the woods, as over 90% of the members we spoke with are now vaccinated and our staff and volunteers are as well, we are very pleased to announce we will be reopening on April 19th for on-site activities. We will ease into it with about 1/3 of the normal activities initially, then another 1/3 in early May with the goal of being back to about 275 monthly activities by June.
- Our plans are in conjunction with the Health & Wellness Committee we formed a year ago which includes CSC members who are retired health care professionals.
- We will of course continue to practice safety protocols such as require mask wearing and wellness checks of all who enter. This will be adjusted as conditions warrant.
