Bruin Senior Center is closing
BRUIN — The Bruin Senior Center will close its doors for good Thursday.
The center, which provides meals, programs and a place to socialize for people older than 60, is a victim of declining attendance, said its longtime manager Marilyn Slagle.
“Attendance has been down here. We're doing good if we have 15 to 20 people. Lately we've been averaging 8 or 9,” said Slagle of the center that is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays in the United Methodist Church, 145 Main St.
Slagle attributes some of the decline in attendance to natural attrition but some of it to people just not being as social as in the past.
“The ones we have are very loyal but they have other things to do,” said Slagle.
“We've been expecting to hear this for weeks,” Slagle said about the closing. “We feel terrible, but what can we do? We can't go out and drag people in.”
“It's very discouraging,” said Helen Albert, 78, of Bruin, who has been going to the senior center since 1995.
Asked what she would miss when the center closes, Albert said, “The people and the programs and the meals. Some of them are very good, and some of them aren't.”
The 11 senior centers in Butler County are operated by the Butler County Area Agency on Aging. The centers are funded by a Pennsylvania Department of Aging block grant and managed under a contract by the Lutheran Service Society.
“We are closing because of its low participation. They are ranging from 2 to 4 consumers,” said Beth Herold, administrator of the Butler County Area Agency on Aging.
“It's just not effective,” she said.
The agency said its figures show it serves a monthly average of 3,567 seniors in the 11 centers.
Bruin Center, open two days a week, saw an average of 28 senior visits during the same period.
In contrast, agency figures show the Southeast Center, located in the Winfield Township Volunteer Fire Department Social Hall, also open two days a week, saw a monthly average of 246 seniors during the same period.
“They haven't been able to increase participation at that center,” said Herold.
But Bruin area seniors won't be left in the lurch, Herold said. The Chicora senior center is close by, and Bruin seniors can take BART transportation to the Chicora location.
And, she added, seniors will still be able to get home-delivered meals through the Area Agency on Aging.
“In closing one of those centers, we can funnel the financial resources to other centers,” said Herold.
“People just don't go to the center, as much,” said Herold. “Seniors working later in life, and they have other obligations.”
She added that currently no other centers are in line for closing, but at the end of the current PDA grant on June 30, the agency might have to re-evaluate the status of the county's remaining 10 centers.
