Crafty seniors help fund center

Michelle Houston admires the workmanship on the quilt to be given away by the The Senior Center on Meadowbrook Drive is a busy place. Monday through Friday, anywhere from 50 to 70 senior citizens can be found playing games, having lunch, enjoying educational programs, exercising or just enjoying each other's company.

It is a place filled with laughter, music and good times for the seniors who are regular visitors. It is also a place senior citizens living alone and on a budget can be guaranteed one hot meal a day.

In addition to centerbased programs, the Senior Center is also home base for Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers meals directly to the homes of over 30 Early County shutins.

The Blakely center, like others in the area, is feeling the results of federal and state funding cuts. Transportation services and delivered meals have been hardest hit.

Transportation services which picks up and delivers seniors who need a ride to centers has been slashed $16,000 this year in the SOWEGA service area. Those funds are expected to be depleted long before the new fiscal year begins in July.

Although Early County normally has 40 slots for Meals on Wheels, the empty slots are not being filled because of budget shortfalls.

Blakely senior citizens do their part to keep the local center open. The local match of $11,000 to the SOWEGA Council is raised primarily through donations by senior citizens attending the center. Any shortfall is made up from the local center's craft fund which is supported through the sale of baby quilts and Senior Citizen Center. other handmade items.

Blakely senior citizens have used their craftiness to help furnish the center, fund center programs such as bingo and monthly birthday parties and to buy craft supplies.

The center's current fund-raiser is a quilt giveaway featuring a floral quilt with squares handpainted by local artist Edye Roberts. The quilt is on display at Lucy Hilton Maddox Memorial Library. Chances are available for $1 donation per chance.

The Blakely Senior Center, as well as the SOWEGA Council on Aging, welcomes donations. Donations to the local craft fund can be mailed to Blakely Senior Center, 310 Meadowbrook Drive, Blakely, Ga. 39823.

Send donations to support Meals on Wheels to SOWEGA Council on Aging, 1105 Palmyra Road, Albany, Ga., 31701.