In February 2015, the Licking Bridge Builders Senior Center will no longer be associated with the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging (SWMOA).
Citing numerous reasons (including communications difficulties, funding inconsistencies, food quality and actions perceived to be inappropriate or deceitful) the Bridge Builders board voted at a Nov. 18 meeting to cut ties with SWMOA and no longer accept its funding or assistance. Board members said the facility’s annual operating cost was $15,894, a far cry from the $70,000 circulated by SWMOA.
“SWMOA paid for about $9,400 of that and we picked up the other $6,000,” said board member Kenneth Hollenbeck. “Fundraising from the period of July 1, 2014 to Nov. 30, 2014 – a five-month period – we raised $18,572. That’s about $3,000 more than the whole expense for this operation from the previous year.”
The board said the $15,894 figure included insurance, maintenance, utilities, sewer, water and fuel, but no food expenditures.
Acting director Cindy Wampner said the Licking Senior Center would still be structured under the Older Americans Act and would in turn still have to meet its requirements. Wampner said she met with a SWMOA official in August about how the agency might make changes that would improve its relationship with the center.
“I told her all kinds of things that I knew would make this work,” Wampner said, “but she didn’t follow through with any of it. Here we are four months later and we have gotten nowhere.”
Once the break is complete in February, the center will need more manpower, according to Wampner.
“We’re going to need volunteers to make it happen,” she said.
The Houston Senior Center (which is and will remain affiliated with SWMOA) is anticipating taking over delivery of food to a number of homebound senior citizens who formerly had SWMOA-funded meals delivered via the Licking center.
Despite being in favor of the Licking Senior Center’s separation from SWMOA, 90-year-old Viola Bailie – a volunteer for 29 years at the center – wonders whether many of her homebound peers will be adequately fed.
“Maybe they’ll get a meal, maybe they won’t,” Bailie said.
For more information, or to volunteer for work at the Licking Senior Center, call 573-674-3558.
*Editor’s note: Information in the article was derived from an article in the Dec. 18 Licking News.