NORTHAMPTON — A decade ago, the $3.9 million senior center was unveiled, a new start after using Memorial Hall, with its little-to-no room for events and activities.
Now, the center on Conz Street is bustling with people, using the gym, playing cards or just grabbing a cup of coffee.
On Friday, the senior community celebrated their center’s landmark year by eating hamburgers and macaroni salad while listening to the Young@Heart Chorus, a local group of seniors who started performing in 1982 and have received international recognition.
“They’re very good,” said Mariann Herrick, 85.
Herrick volunteers at the center’s reception desk and has been helping the Council on Aging, which runs the center, for about 15 years. She remembers when the COA headquarters were at Memorial Hall, a“pitiful” space.
For a cooking class in their former digs, Herrick said, there was no room for actual cooking, so the instructors brought in the food and explained how it was made.
“We couldn’t do anything hands-on,” she said.
COA Director Linda Desmonde says the Conz Street center has plenty of space for various activities throughout the day that are popular among the seniors.
Desmonde has been the director for a year, after returning from 10 years away, in Dublin. Before she moved overseas, she was on the Northampton COA board for 17 years. So she remembers the time at Memorial Hall, when a lack of space cramped the center’s activities.
Desmonde said there’s also been a “change in attitude” among seniors over the years. She said there’s a new cohort of seniors with the mindset to continue to learn, exercise and play.
Herrick agrees that seniors have become more active and said they have become “younger.”
“We have a lot of people you wouldn’t think are their age,” she said.
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.