Euchre, bingo, aerobics classes, movie matinees and almost 20 more activities the Social of Greenwood offers senior citizens will be coming to three new locations.
A $25,000 grant is expanding The Social of Greenwood to accommodate the club’s 750 members from across Johnson County.
The grant was awarded by the Johnson County Community Foundation to expand The Social beyond its Greenwood location, which has served senior citizens for 36 years.
With the $25,000 grant, the social can provide cards, tables, chairs, snacks and other resources to the Nineveh Senior Center, Clary Crossing Senior Villas and Perry Senior Services. All three locations will host events that the Social of Greenwood provides.
“We are so excited to expand The Social,” Program Coordinator Andrea Sutherland said. “It was the right time for it to happen. There is a need for senior centers all over the state.”
The locations will now host events such as Euchre tournaments, bingo night and matinee movies. The Social also provides healthy eating classes, aerobics, soft yoga and computer classes.
Some of the social’s members come from Nineveh, the Center Grove area and Bargersville. Sutherland and the interim Executive Director Liz McKinley visited senior centers in the areas where The Social is expanding, and provided senior citizens with a menu of more than 25 activities and events they would most like to see in their own community center, Sutherland said.
“Tables, chairs, if we want to play bingo we have to have a machine; all of those things were written into this grant,” Sutherland said. “We are able to expand because the grant will get these events and programs running, and sustained. We didn’t want to do this if the grant wasn’t large enough for these programs to sustain themselves.”
The Social of Greenwood was one of five organizations that were awarded grants through the community foundation.
Nonprofit organizations such as The Social applied for grants, and a community foundation committee narrowed the applicants to the top five, community foundation grant chairman Seth Perigo said.
The Social of Greenwood receives monetary donations, as well as equipment donations for the activities and classes the club provides, but grant money is the club’s primary source of funding, Sutherland said. The club serves anyone 50 years old and up, and has members from all across central Indiana, with an average age of 76 years old, she said.
The clubs’ oldest member is 93 and routinely attends the aerobics classes.
“These people, our members, are go-getters,” Sutherland said. “They’re not letting their age stop them whatsoever. We’re excited to be able to do this and take our mission outside of our doors to find more people and see the positive effect it has on the community.”
