EASTHAMPTON — After nearly a year and a half with its doors closed, the Easthampton Senior Center will reopen next week with new leadership on the horizon soon after.
The Senior Center, which has held activities on an almost entirely online or outdoors basis since March 2020, will reopen for indoor activities on Aug 2. At the end of that week, Easthampton Council on Aging Director Brendan Rogers will step down from his role after more than six years with the Senior Center.
But first, Rogers will usher in a “slow and steady” reopening as concerns remain with rising COVID-19 levels and the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus.
“The whole point of a Senior Center is having your doors open to allow people in to socialize,” Rogers said, “and now we’re putting on the brakes here and figuring out how to make our participants feel safe here to come back into the buildings.”
Though the center has not officially reopened since the beginning of the pandemic, the Council on Aging has held events since spring 2020 and continued to offer to-go meals and a grocery drop-off service throughout the pandemic. The council relocated some events indoors last month due to heatwaves but has otherwise offered a mix of virtual and outdoor events for seniors.
Virtual events tended to have lower attendance throughout the pandemic, Rogers said, partially due to a “tech gap … though some were really savvy.
“Now, I think it’s coming down to fatigue,” he continued.
But in recent weeks, outdoor music events have attracted “a great deal of participation,” Rogers said, and grab-and-go lunches have been popular throughout the pandemic.
Though Easthampton has lifted nearly all of its COVID-19 restrictions, the Senior Center will implement extra health and safety measures, such as capacity limits and pre-registration to keep attendance within designated parameters. People who have not been vaccinated must wears masks in the Senior Center, and all must wear masks on Council of Aging transportation regardless of their vaccination status.
The Senior Center will cap attendance at 15 people for exercise or movement-based classes, and at 25 people for all other events. Individual rooms also will have their own occupancy limits: For instance, only three people will be permitted in the kitchen at a time, and five people in the TV room.
All members seeking to use the fitness room must make reservations for a 45-minute slot at least one business day in advance, though the Council on Aging plans to relax this requirement in the near future.
The Council on Aging also will continue to offer outdoor events for those who are not comfortable returning to the building.
Rogers will next work in transportation management with Riverside Industries, an Easthampton non-profit serving people with disabilities. Rogers previously worked for Riverside Industries for 11 years.
“I see this as a new opportunity to plug in services for a population who, much like seniors, fall into a place where services may not be there, and their groups can sometimes be left behind,” Rogers said. “So I think it’s an opportunity to get back into that and support that community.”
Rogers joined the Council on Aging as an outreach coordinator and became the executive director two and a half years later.
From 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Aug. 6 — Rogers’ last day with the Council on Aging — the Senior Center will host a coffee hour on its back lot patio to serve as a welcome back for seniors and a send-off for Rogers. The center is asking attendees to RSVP by calling 413-527-6151.
The Council on Aging is currently interviewing applicants for the executive director position and should make its final selection soon, according to Rogers. Staff members who worked closely with Rogers will run the Council on Aging in the interim.
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.