10A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL November 16, 2016
Senior and Disabled
Services offers aid,
advocacy
BY SAM WRIGHT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
T
Photo by Sam Wright
From left to right: Brenda Ivie, Winnie Valati, Millie Jones, Shirlie Sharp and Gale Miller all gathered at the Creswell
Community Center last Thursday for their weekly social meeting.
Creswell's Over 40 Social Club gets together
BY SAM WRIGHT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
F
or seniors in our north-
ern neighboring town of
Creswell, it might be diffi cult
to fi nd places to socialize with
those of the same age. In the last
couple of years, however, ac-
tive members of the community
teamed up with the local library
to begin a social club for people
over 40 years old. In August of
2014, Creswell Library Direc-
tor Su Liudahl helped set up the
club.
“We don’t have a senior cen-
ter here, and a few people came
to us and we decided to try to
form a little social group,” Liu-
dahl said. The only issue is that
there isn’t enough space for the
club to gather in the library, so
Liudahl had to think of another
place.
“We approached the city to
see if we could get some space
at the community center for a
few hours one day a week,” she
said. The Creswell City Council
approved of the idea, and the
Over 40 Social Club was born.
Attendance rises and falls
from week to week, but the club
has done a lot in service to the
seniors of the community.
“Some days you’ll see over 10
or 15 people there, some days it
will be less than 10,” Liudahl
added. For a brief moment, the
club met two days a week, but
participants agreed that only
one day a week was necessary.
The group meets every Thurs-
day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Attendants mainly work on
arts and crafts, and the club will
occasionally get a teacher to
help them with technique.
“We do what the people want
to do,” Liudahl explained, say-
ing that the activities are really
up to the seniors.
Last Thursday saw fi ve at-
tendants drawing and coloring
at the community center. At-
tendant Millie Jones, originally
from Cottage Grove, says that
the social club is something she
looks forward to.
“It’s nice to socialize and to
learn to paint,” Jones said. She
also added that the group paint-
ed rocks the other week, which
was a fun and creative change of
pace.
The Over 40 Social Club is
going to see some develop-
ments in the next few months.
The Creswell Library recently
received a grant for $250,000 in
order to expand on their current
building. Liudahl says that with
the expansion, the Over 40 So-
cial Club will defi nitely be able
to meet in the library after some
brief construction.
In the meantime, the seniors’
presence can be felt in the li-
brary with their art that will be
on display in the library for an
art show until Dec. 10.
he Senior and Disability
Services program of Lane
County have provided care for
decades. Offi ces can be found
all over Lane County, includ-
ing one right here in Cottage
Grove.
The program offers a wide
range of services including
Medicaid, Senior Connections,
public information, transporta-
tion assistance, nutrition assis-
tance, and the list goes on. The
general mission of the service is
to advocate for seniors and offer
persons with disabilities qual-
ity services. The Cottage Grove
branch is currently run by Unit
Manager Stephanie Sheelar.
The service aims to maintain a
sharp focus on those who are ec-
onomically disadvantaged, frail,
functionally impaired, socially
isolated and vulnerable. It is not
so much a help facility as it is
a facilitator of help. The service
connects seniors and those with
disabilities to programs within
the county that aid seniors. The
function of the division is to pro-
vide planning, service coordina-
tion and development, advocacy
and information access and ser-
vices. For example, questions or
concerns involving Medicaid or
the Oregon Health Plan can be
resolved at the Senior and Dis-
ability Services offi ce. Should a
senior require transportation, the
offi ce in Cottage Grove is asso-
ciated with South Lane Wheels,
which services Drain, Yoncalla,
Cottage Grove and Creswell.
The Senior and Disability
Services of Lane County has
a long history of development
since the passing of the Older
Americans Act in 1965. Four
years prior, the White House
held a conference on aging for
the fi rst time. This implemented
funding to states and counties.
Originally, Oregon fi rst began
with the Area Agencies on Ag-
ing (AAA) and the fi rst one in
the state was with Lane Coun-
cil of Governments. In the early
2000s, the Oregon Department
of Human Services was reor-
ganized, combining specifi c
services including Senior and
Disability Services. The Lane
Council of Governments has
been the coordinator for all fed-
eral grants in Oregon regarding
these services.
The Cottage Grove offi ce is
located at 37 N. Sixth Street.
Seniors and
kitchen
renovations
As life changes begin to oc-
cur, many seniors renovate their
homes — whether a whole-
house overhaul or a room-by-
room approach. The kitchen is
always a great place to start with
cost-effective updates.
New technologies in tile, con-
struction materials and design
make renovation planning a fun
experience, no matter how large
your kitchen project.
Why the Kitchen?
One of the rooms on which
many seniors focus is the
kitchen. That’s because kitchen
returns one of the highest per-
centages of your renovation in-
vestment. From the backsplash
to the countertop, there are
many areas of the kitchen that
can be improved and enhanced
with the addition of new materi-
als such as tile, metal or wood.
Before planning your next
kitchen project, fi rst decide the
amount of work that needs to be
done. Will you execute a com-
plete overhaul or are simply re-
place a countertop?
Go where you want, when you want.
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Let’s create tomorrow, together.
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