City Councilor James Adams makes some remarks Tuesday morning before a ceremonial ground-breaking to celebrate the beginning of construction of the city’s new Senior Center on Noble Street. Adams, together with (unseen) fellow City Councilor Brian Sullivan has served for about a decade as the liaison between the City Council and the Council on Aging and both spoke at the ceremony as did (left to right) State Rep. John Velis, Mayor Daniel M. Knapik, State Sen. Don Humason and Tina Gorman, director of the Council on Aging. (Photo courtesy The Friends of the Westfield Senior Center)
WESTFIELD – Dozens of senior citizens and supporters of a new facility for the city’s senior citizen’s gathered on Noble Street yesterday morning to witness a milestone in the decades-long effort to build a new senior citizen center to host the many programs available to those who are 60 and older in the community.
Although the ground had already been disturbed by the earth-moving equipment of Forish Construction, the prime contractor for the project, a group, including many of the persons who have been instrumental in the process, gathered with shovels for a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony after a short ceremony at the site of the new building.
The new senior center will be built on Noble Street on the site of the former home of the late Mary Noble who left the property to the Westfield Housing Authority with the stipulation that it be used to benefit the city’s older adults.
After a welcome by State Sen. Donald Humason, the ground-breaking ceremony opened with a rendition of the National Anthem by Shea Braceland, a third grade student at Juniper Park School who was followed by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik.
Knapik welcomed the progress and recalled the days when services for the city’s senior citizens were offered in the Cozy Corner, a basement room in City Hall.
Westfield Mayor Daniel Knapik, center, is flanked by John D. Leary, left, chairman of the Westfield Council on Aging Board of Directors, and Christine ‘Tina’ Gorman, right, as the three toss a shovel of dirt at the Council on Aging Senior Center groundbreaking crremony at 45 Noble Street yesterday morning. Also in attendance were state and local officials. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
He said that, at the time, he thought that the Cozy Corner was adequate but later learned that problems with access had required that participants with mobility issues be physically carried up and down stairs to get to the single-room gathering space.
Knapik welcomed to the podium two city councilors – Brian Sullivan and James Adams – who have long been the liaisons between the Council on Aging and the City Council for the project and who, he said, have been advocating for the new senior center for years.
Sullivan said that the ceremony celebrated “an end to the long process” of planning and funding and said “now we get on to the beginning.”
“It’s been a long time coming” Adams said and compared the project to a puzzle. He said that with the shovels in the ground “we’ve got the sides around the puzzle” and now its time to fill in the center of the puzzle.
He said that the senior center “has given (senior citizens) hope and support they needed”
Adams pointed out that, since families no longer stay in the same area, many of the city’s older adults do not have family members living nearby so “this becomes their family.”
He said that with the new senior center comes improved access and on-site parking which will make it possible for more senior citizens to use the senior center.
“We know what the outside’s going to look like, now we have to work on the inside,” he said.
An independent support group, The Friends of the Westfield Senior Center, is working to raise about $500,000 to fund the furnishings and amenities for the center and that got a boost from the Massachusetts legislature, State Rep. John Velis announced, when he spoke at the ceremony.
He said that, working with Humason in the senate, the city’s legislators were able to secure a one-time $50,000 grant from the state.
Adams said that he visited many other communities to inspect their senior citizen facilities and said that Westfield has a big advantage because, of all the facilities he visited, “we have, by far, the best director” in Tina Gorman, the director of the Council on Aging.
Gorman said that the COA provides services to about 2,000 of the city’s 8,000 senior citizens and said “we’ll be able to do so much better when we’re in the new facility.”
She said that the current Main Street facility has only one large room to use for programs so it is difficult to schedule more than one activity at a time.
“In the new building we’ll be able to do seven or eight programs simultaneously,” she said.
Gorman praised Knapik for keeping his campaign promise to open a new senior center.
She said that he made the promise while campaigning against former Mayor Michael Boulanger and said that, after he won the election and visited the senior center, she reminded him of his public promise.
She said yesterday that, with ground broken for the building, Knapik has fulfilled his pledge.
