Michael Kraft
The Healy Senior Center has two origin stories, both true and one quite noteworthy.
Story 1: the center started with a potluck group in a church in Garberville, which went to the Veteran’s Hall and, eventually, to the Healy Center. This is also the origin of the center’s social dining tradition. Social dining happens on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The place opens at noon and folks generally arrive about then to interact. Lunch is served at 12:30. It’s a full, nutritious meal, which includes as many local ingredients as possible. And, while the food is great, the social interaction is equally important.
Origin story 2: The place is named for Dan Healy Sr., a real estate agent and pilot in Southern Humboldt. His son, Dan Jr., worked for years as the front of house/sound man for the band The Grateful Dead. When Dan Sr. died in a plane crash at Shelter Cove, the band wanted to commemorate Dan Senior’s life and grants from The Grateful Dead’s Rex Foundation were instrumental in buying the house that now serves as the home of the center. This explains why you’ll hear Grateful Dead music coming from the kitchen much of the time.
The Healy is the only senior center from the 100+ mile strip from Willits to Fortuna. It’s also the only Meals on Wheels program in the region. Folks at the Healy provide info on CalFresh (supplemental nutrition). They also help with navigating Medical, health care, In Home Supportive Services, and other issues critical to seniors. Many seniors prefer direct, human-to-human conversation. Many don’t dive deep into technology, so information provided via hard copies proves helpful. “We want to make sure seniors know the services that are available to them,” says Executive Director Rebecca Crossland.
Rebecca has served as Executive Director at the center for 10 months. She has lived in SoHum for 20 years. Formerly the owner of Cecil’s restaurant, she also performed lots of youth & nonprofit work in the community. The mix of food service and nonprofit service turns out to be helpful.
But life at the Healy Center is far from being only a bureaucratic slog navigating baffling systems. “We just like to have fun here!,” Rebecca says. There was Hawaiian week in August. There’s bingo. There’s live music, which can provide amazing for seniors with cognitive issues and also brings a community of musicians into the center. There’s SAIL (stay active & independent for life), a weekly, volunteer-led exercise program.
There are crafts, such as the wood & yarn shelf witches participants made for Halloween. Last year during the holidays, in a crossover of crafts and Meals on Wheels, folks made mini-Christmas trees which were then delivered with meals.
The center operates with a staff of 4, a chef, assistant chef, program director, and the ED. Volunteers prove to be indispensable, helping with meal service, running the exercise programs and taking lunch reservations. There’s a firewood program for seniors run in partnership by CalFire and Healy Center volunteers. The center’s biggest volunteer push is for the annual yard sale. I asked Rebecca what she thought was the most interesting item sold at this year’s sale. She replied, “I wish I had bought the WC Fields lamp, complete with a top hat and the man’s big nose.”
When it comes to funding, she says, “like everyone else, we’re struggling.” It’s a perfect storm of funding cuts, of the center’s regular grants, the ones they could count on from year to year, seeing many more applicants and competition and costs for food and insurance are way up. National Meals on Wheels funds have been cut. Rebecca went on to say that “what we’re going to see, we believe, is cuts to the seniors themselves. It’s very hard for seniors to decipher the cuts to medical coverage, like Medicare supplemental insurance and MediCal. Navigating this is very difficult.”
At least, she says, California is trying to blunt the impact of federal cuts on health care for seniors.
Rebecca repeats a theme that is common when you talk with folks who live and work in Southern Humboldt. “We all work so communally.” It’s still a very giving community, but unfortunately local economics mean many residents are able to do less.
December falls dead center in the Healy’s yearly funding drive. Rebecca would like you to know the very concrete difference your donations will make. $100, for example, will feed a homebound elderly recipient in the Meals on Wheels program for a month. To help, call the center 707-923-2399, or go to www.healyseniorcenter.org and look for the donate button on the home page. You can also sign up for the newsletter or follow on Facebook.
Michael Kraft writes the Good Work series, volunteering on behalf of the Northern California Association of Nonprofits (NorCAN). NorCAN supports connections between people and organizations that work every day to keep our communities healthy and strong by offering professional development, board support, networking connections and more. Learn more at https://norcal-nonprofits.org/. To nominate a deserving nonprofit organization to be profiled, email michael@kraftconsultants.com.
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