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Date: 5/17/2022
AMHERST – The Amherst Senior Center hosted an open house on May 11 at the Bangs Community Center to celebrate the center’s full reopening in person. The open house featured a jazz trio and food catered by Black Sheep Deli which the center’s Director Hayley Bolton said was because of a grant from the town’s CRESS (Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service) Department who they have been working closely with for the last month.
“We had about 65 to 70 people wander in over the two hours, and a lot of folks were just sitting in the lobby and enjoying the music,” Bolton said. “It was really great, people got to connect. I heard a lot of people saying, ‘I haven’t seen this person in years,’ or ‘I didn’t know you were doing that program now, I’d like to come and attend that.’ It was a great refresher and a great way to welcome people back to the Bangs.”
Bolton was hired near the end of 2021. She formerly worked as Bernardston’s Senior Center and Council on Aging director and worked for the Amherst Survival Center before that, saying she’s always felt a pull to be in a helping profession.
“When I saw that there was a job opening in Bernardston, I really just wanted to go and grab it. I consider myself pretty ambitious and I was wanting a little bit more responsibility,” Bolton said. “Likewise for Amherst – Bernardston’s a very small town of only 2,000 people and we have 5,200 seniors in Amherst. The populations are so different, but I think at its core, a good senior center is a place for seniors and older adults to come and relax and get much-needed social interaction. Talking to someone and seeing their face and expressions really helps build acuities, it really helps keep our seniors active and engaged and that’s really what we want – seniors to be a part of the community.”
Up until recently, the Senior Center’s services were much more limited. Bolton recalled how challenging it was when she first started, saying that the doors to the Bangs Center were locked and most of their programs were virtual with very limited in-person classes.
“It’s hard to get to know your community when you can’t see them and when you do, you only see half of their face,” Bolton said. “The past few months have been leading up to offering more on-site programs to kick off that we’re here and we want to have our seniors back at the Bangs Center. That has been a lot of work to get that up and running, but now we are offering much more in-person exercise, we have a self-care week where we’ll be doing reiki sessions, manicures, massages and we have some different pet-themed activities.”
The 30-minute reiki sessions require an appointment and are led by Bob Nelson every Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. with a suggested donation of $20. Mobile Manicure’s with Sarah Hassett are also by appointment only on the fourth Tuesday of every month for $25.
The center also offers a litany of resources for seniors, including information and referral services for support services for older adults and their caregivers, support groups and resources for caregivers and bereavement, and long-term care planning including in-home options, assisted living, nursing home and more.
Full lists of available activities and resources are posted online at www.amherstma.gov/269/Senior-Services.