Update on COVID-19
As we all feel the impact of COVID-19, there’s never been a greater time to stand with our mission of hope and compassion for seniors. The Cathedral City Senior Center (CCSC), in its 40th year of service, remains focused on offering a diverse range of services with the singular focus of empowering older adults to live their lives on their own terms with independence, dignity, and a sense of fulfillment. We are here for the many older adults in our community who desperately need our help. Our vibrant Senior Center facility remains closed to the public due to the stay-at-home order and the need for physical distancing, yet our work of fostering the well-being and reduction of isolation of our clientele has increased sharply. I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the essential services that our Senior Center provides during the pandemic, as well as our respective needs for continued operations.
What We’re Doing
We rapidly modified our essential nutritional programs providing vital food to seniors in need: continuing our weekly food banks, providing daily lunches, and adding weekend meal services. They are necessary and needed more than ever. Importantly, we utilize other resources to keep in touch with our members, clients and friends; and remain an important first-call-to-make regarding resources for seniors in need across our community. During this time, we have:
- Expanded our Friendly Connections program providing weekly phone calls from CCSC volunteers to any senior in need of a friendly voice. Those calls involve a regular check-in and referrals to: testing sites; tele-counseling; Office on Aging resources; senior citizens residential utilities discount programs; early-bird senior grocery shopping hours; and in some instances, coordinating volunteers to run errands, such as delivering food or picking up medications.
- We make automated broadcast phone calls to our membership with new health guidelines and up-to-date information on the CCSC. Through social media, we offer an evolving lineup of online-programming ranging from personal growth and self-improvement instruction to entertainment, humor, exercise, virtual gatherings and more. We are in the process of offering enhanced virtual programming with CCSC’s regular lineup of beloved instructors, and some new ones!
We would like your input as we contemplate how to reopen, such as incorporating physical distancing, wearing masks, continuing a robust center disinfection regimen, and potential new protocols, such as temperature checks. If you have ideas, or if you are not currently receiving senior center calls, emails, or eblasts, please go to the website, www.TheCCSC.org, to sign-up and share your thoughts. Alternatively, you may call during business hours, from 9-4, M-F at 760-321-1548.
What We Need
While the CCSC staff and volunteers are connecting with members virtually, they still continue to provide vital in-person services: delivering food, picking up medications, answering telephone calls, packing lunches and food bank bags for curbside pickup, coordinating with other service providers, and receiving donations of food, clothing, household goods and medical mobility and other medical supplies for redistribution to the community, especially homebound seniors in need. These critical services incur considerable expense—such as rent, staff, utilities, insurance, and supplies—but without any of the income derived from daily activity fees and facility rentals. As we continue to provide services and move toward reopening the facility to the public, please consider helping CCSC serve our area’s vulnerable seniors by contributing on Giving Tuesday Now on Tuesday, May 5th.
- On May 5, CCSC will be participating in Giving Tuesday Now! As you are aware, Giving Tuesday is normally the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Because of the Covid-19 crisis, it is apparent there needed to be a major fundraising effort across the country. We hope you’ll participate on Tuesday and give generously to our Senior Center, our community’s resource for seniors. And, if you would care to, you can even donate right now. Just click on the link below and it will take you to our secure donation page.
- The CCSC welcomes your creativity in making donations—if you have taken this time at home to clean out your closets and pantry, please consider donations of non-perishable food items, especially canned proteins; household goods; and Amazon or other gift cards. Contactless curbside drop-off is available by schedule. For large donations of nonperishable food, scheduled pickup services may be available by calling 760-321-1548.
As Executive Director of the CCSC, I would be happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions to make our services grow and become more efficient. Please feel free to email me at your convenience, geoff@cathedralcenter.org. And lastly, keep in mind that seniors are disproportionately affected medically, nutritionally and financially. Many are isolated and depend on the CCSC for companionship and a sense of belonging. Help the CCSC to continue to provide social services, nutrition, wellness and medical supplies. No amount is too small. Every little bit helps the Cathedral City Senior Center provide for our seniors! With Gratitude… Geoff CorbinExecutive Director
