Valley Senior Center provides entertainment, information
BY JOHN BRICE
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
VALLEY — Members of the Valley Senior Center enjoyed additional benefits to their regularly scheduled bingo on Jan. 30. Senior Center Manager Kelsey Overby explained what some of the main features were for those who attend.
“Today we are playing bingo with Ms. Hazel. We are also celebrating a birthday,” she said. “We play bingo every week, we do a chair zumba, play shuffleboard and have puzzle groups. We have different groups that play cards and do dominoes. We have some that group together and walk the halls in walking groups. Community and companionship is very important. A lot of the seniors are alone now, it gives them a chance to make friends and be together.”
Overby said providing a wide range of services is an important aspect of the center.
“We try to form a little community and a place to enjoy each other’s company and treat it like a family,” she said. “We do offer transportation to and from the center. We also have a home delivery service for those who are homebound. We deliver about 110 meals a day to our home seniors — it is needed.”
Overby said one recent event was a major success.
“We just had our senior prom back in December, so that was pretty good,” she said. “It was different, it was the first one we had ever had. We had it on New Year’s Eve. We had about 30 or so [seniors] come and dance the night away. We actually got a few new people that came to prom that wanted to join the senior center.”
Hosting the day’s bingo competition was special guest Hazel Floyd who is a lifelong resident of Valley and a political candidate. Floyd began the activity by introducing herself.
“Some of you may remember when I came and I did game night — I think it was back in November,” she said. “I wanted to come back again and reintroduce myself for the people who could not make it out. My name is Hazel Floyd and I am the democratic candidate running for State House District 38. Some of you may not know that the election is this Tuesday. I am from Valley, Alabama. I grew up here, raised here. I went to Valley High School, went to Southern Union. Then I went to the University of Alabama where I got my degree in Political Science and Philosophy.”
Floyd explained her motivation for running for office.
“I am here to try and come back and serve my community,” she said. “Valley poured so much into me so I want to do what I can to pour right back into the community. I am going to just say one quick thing, I have noticed as I have gone to the other senior centers that not a lot of people have heard about the Medicaid issue that is going on. I wanted to share something that touches my heart really hard.
“A lot of people with Medicaid recently have [costs that have] been going up due to a lot of the budget cuts that have been going on. I have had a lot of people ask me what I am going to do to try and save Medicaid. I feel that right now we are in a situation where I am not trying to make Medicaid any cheaper. I am trying to save what little we already have left. I am going to do what I can to make sure your rates don’t increase. Recently we have had some reports of seniors, senior centers and nursing homes that can’t afford the beds because Medicaid covers a lot of beds in the nursing home.”
Floyd concluded her remarks by expressing the urgency of health care needs for seniors.
“They are having to move back home with their families,” she said. “The families that have tons of children can’t support their elders. Some of the elders have resorted to ending their own life because they don’t want to be a financial burden on other people. I want to do what I can to make sure that those seniors don’t feel that death is the only way out of financial burden. I want you all to live and prosper for however long you have left because you guys deserve to be here just as much as anyone else.”
