Senior Center Best Practices

Managers, Directors and Center Personnel

Senior Center Best Practices

Category
Nutrition Event

Senior Center/Nutrition Program/Organization Name
The Heritage House

Address
4 Sylvania St, Brookville, Pa 15825

Phone Number
1-814-849-3391

E-Mail
jcaaastroka@windstream.net

Contact Person
Diane Stroka

Event Name
Monthly themed meals and evening meals

Description/Overview
Once a month we have a themed congregate lunch (Mexican and Italian for example), we learn about the culture that goes along with the theme. We hold one evening meal every other month. We include some type of entertainment with the meal. All the meals meet the nutritional requirements.

Time and Manpower
There is usually about 1-2 hours involved in the planning of the themed congregate lunches. Doing some research on the different cultures. We usually decorate according to the theme. There is no extra time involved in the meal prep. We work with the provider for our congregate lunches to choose the menu for both the lunches and the evening meals and they prepare it. The volunteers do the decorating and serving of the lunches and the meal provider serves the evening meal.

Marketing
To market our themed lunches and evening meals we advertise in our monthly news letter, the free cable channels, flyers in all of our centers and word of mouth

Audience Served
Our target audience is for those over 60 who have never been in the Heritage House. For our event we have attendance from our regular consumers, those who come only for special events and we see new faces in the center.

Partnerships Utilized
We partner with our meal provider to make these events nice. It brings new individuals into the center and it helps the meal provider out at the same time. We have volunteers that provide talent with entertainment.

Budget/Costs
The costs were really minimal for these events. We used volunteers for serving. We bought a few decorations as well as made some or had someone bring decorations in from home.

Impact On Center
These events have brought in new people to the center. The themed congregate lunches bring in about 40-50 people who do not normally come in for lunch and the evening meals bring in about 120-150 people many which are new to the center.

Good Tips/Other
This is an easy idea to try that does not take a lot of time or prep. People like to gather to socialize when food is involved.