WESTFIELD – The Friends of the Westfield Senior Center, which began in 2010, operates seperately from the Westfield Council on Aging and has now raised $325,000 toward furnishing the new Westfield Senior Center on Noble Street.
The facility is expected to be completed in September and the Friends are closer to their goal of $500,000, thanks to pledges from the likes of Westfield Bank ($100,000) and local contractors John S. Lane & Son, Inc. ($50,000), as well as $50,000 secured by Westfield State Rep. John Velis in the 2014 state budget.
Friends President Tom Humphrey and members such as Michael Parent are hoping that more city residents will join in the effort.
Parent said that donors can spread the donation out over a three-year period.
“We’ve probably targeted about 25 percent of the businesses in Westfield,” he said, adding that the group has ’65 percent’ of their fundraising done. “We pick eight or nine (businesses) in a week and work a little bit at a time, targeting those who we have a potential relationship with.”
Donors have the ability to sponsor an entire room in the center, an honor which Parent added will last forever.
“Some of the prime rooms are getting taken, so if you’re interested in donating, we’d like to hear from you,” he said.
Tina Gorman, executive director of the Westfield Council on Aging, said that the Friends are looking to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who donates to the project, whether the gift is for less than $100 or more than $10,000.
“We’re going to have two pieces of wall art, where those sponsors who donate $500 will be commemorated,” she said, adding that windows are also available for $1,000. “Then there will be a second wall and a tree with leaves and each leaf will be $100. Anybody who makes a donation to the capital campaign, your name will be somewhere in the building.”
Gorman also tried to put to rest the tired notion that senior centers cater exclusively to the AARP crowd.
“The senior center and the Council On Aging… we’re really a social service department and offer a lot of services for children, grandchildren, sometimes neighbors,” Gorman said at a Friends meeting yesterday. The center’s work includes helping adults who are caring for aging parents outside of the community, to holding youth baseball signups.
The city’s veterans will also be afforded an office where they can receive special care at the new center, something Gorman said was a huge priority for Westfield Mayor Daniel M. Knapik.
“Vets have been all over the place and now they’ll have a suite of their own,” she said. “It will be convenient for everyone and it was really the Mayor’s idea to consolidate.”
It is the current imperative of the Friends to convince the public to get involved with this campaign for, as Humphrey said, “the party’s already started.”
“We’ve done a lot since October and the passion is there,” he said, holding up a well-worn copy of the new senior center’s blueprint, with rooms checked off and names of donors scribbled next to them.
“Our goal is that we want more money and we want to cover this (map). This is a homegrown effort,” he said.”
