Morrow County Seniors honor members, board at luncheon

By LeAnne Gompf -

Despite the extremely warm tem­per­a­tures, nearly 100 seniors made their way to the Mor­row County Fair­grounds last week to enjoy a pic­nic hon­or­ing the mem­ber­ship of the Seniors on Cen­ter, Board Mem­bers and the Mor­row County Chap­ter of the Glean­ers, who help with ongo­ing projects for the center.

The Mor­row County Seniors cur­rently have over 200 mem­bers. Monthly and weekly activ­i­ties are planned by Eve­lyn Bar­nett, Activ­i­ties Direc­tor, for the mem­ber­ship to enjoy.

“I am pleased that so many could join us today given that fact it is 95 degrees,” Bar­nett said.

The mem­ber­ship col­lected items for the local dog shel­ter and she was excited to make the pre­sen­ta­tion to Dog War­den Sarina Atwell.

Atwell explained to the mem­ber­ship the work­ings of the dog shel­ter and her role as Dog War­den. She said that annu­ally the shel­ter processes over 400 dogs and cur­rently they are hous­ing 22 dogs. She is extremely proud of the face that the Mor­row County Shel­ter is able to adopt out most of the dogs they receive or they are sent to res­cue groups. The most com­mon breeds brought into the shel­ter are coon or hound dogs, along with black labs. She went on to explain the shel­ter is county funded.

“Our oper­at­ing bud­get is very lim­ited,” Atwell said. “We are open to take in strays and owner turn-ins. We only have 29 ken­nels and our focus is to pro­mote and adopt out the dogs we take in.”

The shel­ter makes every attempt to dis­cover as much about the ani­mals as pos­si­ble how­ever, Atwell explained, “as with most shel­ters we do not know every­thing about each dog. Our fees to adopt are low, but we can­not guar­an­tee the health of any animal.”

Atwell asked the senior mem­ber­ship for input and feed­back on a pro­gram she is hop­ing to imple­ment in the near future, Senior Dogs for Seniors. She is hope­ful that seniors are will­ing to adopt a pet that would pro­vide com­pan­ion­ship for them. Sta­t­i­cally, depres­sion among seniors is reduced or lim­ited when they have a pet to care for.

The Copy­cats were also on hand Thurs­day to enter­tain dur­ing the meal. Prior to their per­for­mance their direc­tor gave a brief expla­na­tion as to what they do for Whet­stone Industries.

“The scan­ning depart­ment pre­pares the doc­u­ments that are later scanned and con­verted to dig­i­tal doc­u­ments. Our employ­ees are learn­ing some­thing new every­day and they thor­oughly enjoy the work they do. Being involved gives them a sense of pur­pose and direc­tion. The per­for­mance side of Copy­cats allows for both fun with music and exer­cise for our adults.”

At the con­clu­sion of their pro­gram, the Copy­cats led the senior mem­ber­ship in a sing-a-long of Amaz­ing Grace. The upbeat and jazzy ver­sion of this song was a hit with those in atten­dance. The Copy­cats min­gled briefly with the seniors before depart­ing and return­ing to work.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Jul 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.