With the possibility of a funding cut looming over the Elizabethton Senior Center, the Center’s director is still hopeful the county will restore funding to the agency when they vote on the budget next month.

When members of the Carter County Budget Committee approved a budget for the coming 2018-19 fiscal year, the group cut out funding for any non-mandated outside agencies in an effort to decrease the county’s expenditures and avoid an even more substantial property tax increase.

The Elizabethton Senior Center was one of several agencies who saw their funding level from the county drop to zero in the proposed budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Last year, the Senior Center received $14,584.40 from the county. For the coming fiscal year, the Senior Center requested $23,000 in funding.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t happen,” Elizabethton Senior Center Director Kathy Dula said. “I hope they see their way clear to give us what we requested or at least what they gave us last year.”

The Senior Center provides vital services to seniors in the community, according to Dula.

Among the services provided at the center are educational classes, where members and other attendees can learn about health care issues, nutrition, elder abuse prevention, personal safety, and how to avoid being scammed.

The Senior Center also offers recreation opportunities such as a billiard room, bowling, painting classes, and, of course, the popular weekly Bingo game.

“A big thing here is physical fitness,” Dula said. “We have a fitness room, and we offer classes in Zumba, yoga, aerobics, line dancing, and bowling.”

Another vital part of the services at the Senior Center are meals. Every day the center serves breakfast and lunch for members. And for those who can’t make it out to get to the center, Dula said they deliver meals to residents’ homes.

“We always include our homebounds,” Dula said. “We have volunteers that come in every day and deliver meals to the homebound.” Currently, the Senior Center provides meals Monday through Friday of each week to approximately 80 homebound seniors in the community, including homebound residents in Roan Mountain.

Around the holidays, meals are also a big to do with special lunches for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For those who can make it out of their home, but don’t have a way to get to the Center, Dula said the center provides transportation for them.

“We have vans to pick them up and bring them here,” Dula said. “Then two days a week they stop to shop on their way home.”

The center also provides a place for the seniors to gather and socialize with friends. According to Dula, for many of the members, the club is their primary source of social interaction with others.

Dula feels that the Senior Center is “one-stop shopping” for the seniors when it comes to finding assistance or needed services. The center provides office space for a caseworker with the Options program through the state that can help seniors get required assistance in their homes with daily tasks such as grooming and light housework. Representatives from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) can meet with members at the center to help them sign up for assistance. The center’s staff can aid members in locating other assistance programs they might need.

If a senior needs help, Dula said they turn to the Senior Center to find it.

“It includes not just services, but fun things to do, and they deserve that,” Dula said of the center. “Statistics show that people who attend a senior center regularly suffer less from depression, they lead healthier lives, they are more active, and they fall victim to elder abuse and scams less frequently.”

“We do everything we can to make their lives easier and better,” she added.

Dula, and others involved in the center, are concerned with the possibility of the proposed funding cut by the county. Dula said the loss of funding would be “devastating” to the center and its services.

“It’s almost 20 percent of my budget,” Dula said. “That’s a pretty good chunk.”

If that revenue is lost, Dula said the center would have to make some changes and adjustments because the amount is too significant to absorb. She said while they have looked at some options, nothing has been decided at this time as to how the agency would handle a nearly $15,000 loss of funding.

If the cut comes, Dula said she would have to work with the center’s Advisory Board to determine how to move forward. Currently, the Elizabethton Senior Center has two full-time employees and one part-time employee.

The Elizabethton Senior Center is located at 428 E. G St., Elizabethton. For more information on the Elizabethton Senior Center, contact the center at (423) 543-4362.