The Lorain Senior Center, 3361 Garfield Blvd. in Lorain, wants to continue serving residents, but repairs are needed at the facility, according to the Board of Trustees.
J.R. Lee, president the Lorain Senior Center board, said the building has not been updated for over a decade.
The senior center is run solely by volunteers, which has helped it to stay open, Lee said.
The volunteer staff had hoped to use an open house June 21 to entice local governments and donors into helping secure funding, he said.
“(We invited) the people that we need to come here to show them what we do,” he said. “We (need) money to bring this place up-to-date to what it needs to be.
“It’s so far behind in date that it’s ridiculous.”
The Lorain Senior Center is housed in the former Jane Lindsay Elementary School.
In 1958, the school opened on Garfield Avenue and was named after the former principal of Fairhome School.
The building closed as a school in 1978 and reopened in 1980 as a community center.
In 1996, the senior center bought the building with the help of the Lorain Community Development Department.
The building largely has not changed since its reopening, Lee said.
“The hope here is to get enough money to bring this place up to where it needs to be, so when people come here, it’s presentable.”
— Lorain Senior Center Board president J.R. Lee
Specifically, he cited the electrical, heating and cooling systems, and windows as outdated.
“The structure of the building is solid,” Lee said. “I’ve been involved with the center since about 2009.
“The things I’ve seen shouldn’t be, such as money not going into the building, things not being repaired, things not being fixed, things not being updated.”
Lee said the hope for the open house was for the community to see the importance of funding the facility.
“The hope here is to get enough money to bring this place up to where it needs to be, so when people come here, it’s presentable,” he said.
“I want it to be one of the nicest places in Lorain County, if not the state of Ohio.”
The senior center can further help the community if it received additional funding, Lee said.
There are plans to add a garden in the backyard to grow food for people in Lorain, he said.
Currently, it houses a gift shop, along with multiple sewing and quilting groups, he said.
The Uniquely Made Quilting group recently started using one of the rooms at the senior center.
After years of working out of smaller rooms, other sewing shops, even a closet, the group found a home at the senior center.
“(The senior center) is a godsend, and the best place we’ve got. Sometimes it makes me cry,” Uniquely Made Quilting leader Delma Sosinski said.
Outside of quilting for themselves, Sosinski said the quilters at Uniquely Made donate a lot of their work to charities.
Through the senior center, the group has assisted Good Knights of Lorain County, a nonprofit that provides complete, comfortable and safe beds to children in need in Lorain County, among other groups.
The quilters will send quilts to different hospitals around West Virginia later this year, Sosinski said.
“I’m telling you, this place is a godsend,” she said. “God’s Ministries, we made little tissue (holders). Everything we do, in between doing what we want for our own, we do for charity.”
Sosinski said the group also performs quilt repairs free of charge, but they do urge those coming in for repairs to make a donation to the senior center.
The members of Uniquely Made thanked Lee and his wife, Nancy, vice president of the senior center board, and remain confident that the facility will be successful in securing funding.
“J.R. is (amazing); I don’t know how he does everything,” Sosinski said.
