With volunteer resources at a premium, sometimes it hard to get people to step up to help with yet another “GREAT” idea to make Bowen a more interesting and caring place to live. But when Seniors Keeping Young partnered with Caring Circle to create a community lunch program and found funding to support the idea, three other similarly interested organizations jumped into the mix to broaden the scope of the program to truly make this a dynamic and sustainable ‘social gathering’ opportunity for the community.
Seniors Keeping Young (SKY), Caring Circle, The Little Red Church, the Legion, and Bowen Island Community Recreation are working together to offer a community lunch program. It will be offered twice monthly to start and if it is well attended, it may eventually mimic other communities and offer a weekly lunch program, much like the dinner program that the Legion already provides.
Caring Circle, on behalf of SKY, applied for a New Horizons Grant to support the program and that application was successful On that note, none of this could have happened if Maxine Alcock hadn’t offered her services to Caring Circle a year ago wanting to “cook for seniors”. It was the same week that Sky and Caring Circle were in their first talks about the potential for a lunch program. ..serendipity!
Maxine has been providing wonderful soups since Sept. 2014 as we were doing a trial run to see if the idea had traction. We’ve worked out the kinks and are now ready to seamlessly provide lunch for the community.
This program addresses many of the needs of the community and fulfills some of the goals of all of these organizations. Caring Circle is concerned about isolated community members and hopes that this might be a way for socialization that could lead to a better quality of life for some Islanders. The Little Red Church is always wanting to reach out to those who would benefit from the company and care of others. The Legion has been looking for ways to increase their programming and reach out to more community members. Bowen Island Community Recreation is eager to better connect with Seniors. So someone from Community Rec will be attending every lunch and help facilitate any number of quiet but fun activities eg. pool, shuffleboard, darts, poker, crib, checkers, chess and whatever imaginative games they might concoct depending on the group in attendance.
And of course SKY was initially very concerned about falling numbers and what seemed a branding problem – it seems no one’s old enough to attend SKY programming! Also their programs were primarily attended by women, their numbers were dwindling and their capacity to carry on with their mandate was at risk. Organizing an activity that might attract more men was important to the organization as well as having something new to offer the community to build their volunteer capacity.
The other exciting component for all of the community partners was to make this event open to all adults on Bowen, not just seniors. Other communities have lunch programs and they’re generally offered for adults of any age. Mixed demographics is often a recipe for a richer experience for all.
So the first lunch is scheduled for April 28 from 1130 – 1 p.m. on a drop in basis. Come anytime in that block of time and have Gourmet Soup accompanied by Artisan Bread followed by Coffee/Tea and Dessert for just $5.00
And if you have trouble with transportation, call Caring Circle at 9100 to arrange a pick up and drop home time (Please give us some lead time). We are offering free transportation for those who can’t manage to get there on their own.
Please come along and meet your neighbours, make new friends, have some lively conversation, perhaps have a regular pool or shuffleboard game with likeminded “athletes”! Or perhaps cards or chess is your interest…we’ll have the boards out waiting for players after a hardy bowl of soup. Make this work for our community by participating. This could be fun…
This program is funded by Government Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program
