BUILDING A NEW HOME: CAPE NUTRITION CENTER BEGINS CONSTRUCTION OF NEW BUILDING

Above, Paul Meisner and Russel Faust look for the pieces to fit the jigsaw puzzle. Playing cards is one of many activities at the center. At right, Fred O. Williams smiles after winning a game of Pitch.

Hazel Kester, who has been a regular volunteer at the Nutrition Center since 1983, works on a tulip pattern quilt. (Photos by Mark Sterkel) (color)

Bake sales, quilt raffles and a "Buck-a-Month" club seem a hard way to raise money for a new building, yet volunteers at the Cape Girardeau Nutrition Center are doing it.

Although the financial details are not finalized, officials have announced plans to go ahead with the project. A ground-breaking ceremony is planned Thursday at 2 p.m. at the site for the new center, 921 N. Clark Street.

Plans call for construction to begin in May, and an optimistic estimate for the building to be finished is Oct. 1.

"I think we will make it," said Jo Nelle Lingo, administrator of the center. "Hopefully we will be able to open in the fall."

True, not all the money has been raised through bake sales, but all the money is being raised locally.

"Everybody thought the county senior services tax would be used to build our building," Lingo said. "It will not. That money will go for services. We have to raise the money for the building ourselves."

Lingo said she and others have researched possible federal or state grants to help fund a portion of the building but have not found any help yet. "We are going to have to do this ourselves."

The center did get approval for the Neighborhood Assistance Program, which allows businesses to take income tax credits for donations toward the center.

Fund-raising efforts will continue.

Lingo said: "We need the community behind us. We believe the senior center should be a focal point in the community. The seniors have no other place to go, no place to call their own."

The nutrition center opened 18 years ago this month at Sunny Hill and operated there for a short time before moving to 23 N. Middle. In 1978, the center moved to the Cape County Park, and to its present site, 232 Broadway, in 1987.

The current facility is too small and has inadequate parking. The nutrition center rents the facility and shares it with the Cape Civic Center for teens. The seniors must pack up their projects each day to make room for the youths each afternoon and evening. "It's just not ours," Lingo said.

The cornerstone of the seniors' program has always been the meal. An average of 160 people eat lunch at the center each day. When roast beef or fried chicken is served, the number is much higher.

"The main idea has always been to get seniors out of their homes and out with other people," she said. "They will come in for a meal. When they get here, they know the people."

The center also provides home-delivered meals to about 40 homes in Cape Girardeau.

This week the center is being recognized for its service during Home-Delivered Meals Week. Volunteers, mostly senior citizens themselves, deliver meals and check on the wellbeing of home-bound senior citizens.

The center offers activities like jigsaw puzzles, quilting and card games. But Lingo believes the camaraderie of those who come keeps them coming back.

Russel Faust, who is now president of the board at the center, said: "After my wife died, I started coming in to eat. I was surprised how many people I knew or had worked with. And I love to play cards."

Card games, including a wicked game of Pitch, are almost always under way at the center.

"When they started moving down here they were short of help, so I started helping them move things. Then they needed help carrying meals."

Faust was hooked.

"It helps fill a vacuum in your life. It helps you to know that living is worthwhile," he said.

The volunteer spirit is encouraged. Those who come regularly for a meal are often enlisted to help.

Ruby Segraves, a retired retail sales clerk, has taken over the crafts showcase and revenue has more than quadrupled.

"I just came down for the food with my neighbor. The next thing you know, they asked me to sell these things," she said.

"I enjoy the people here. I don't know everyone's name, but I always say hello to everyone. And you always get a good lunch here.

"Now I've gotten accustomed to coming here. I don't have to be alone."

Walter G. Phillips is among regulars at the center. "My wife had Alzheimers and Lymes Disease," he said. "Before she died, I would come by here and pick up carry-out meals. The week after she died I started coming in. I liked the food and the others were saying I should come in.

"Now I come most every day. I enjoy it. I know a lot of people, people I've known for a long time. This is a nice bunch."

Phillips, 88, said he could cook his own meals at home. "But I like to come down here just to be sociable. I can't work; I've got heart trouble. I enjoy the companionship."

Besides, he said, he gets a chance to talk to people a lot older than he is.

William Vandeven's wife is disabled. He began picking up meals at the center for he and his wife. Her condition worsened, and she is now in a nursing home. Vandeven, 88, comes to the center almost daily.

"This is a wonderful place for me to come. I get a full meal, at least once a day. And I like to meet people my own age. I found one fellow, his wife went into the nursing home also."

That kind of companionship, Lingo said, is what makes the center so important.

"These people see that they are not alone; other people are facing similar problems. They get support from each other."

The new facility has been designed to specifically meet the needs of seniors with 8,040 square feet of floor space; 105 parking spaces are also planned.

"We hope to open up a crafts room where people can come and work on a project and leave it to work on later.

A new television set has been donated and will be placed in a special television lounge.

The new facility will seat 50 to 75 percent more people for meals, and also includes two areas where meetings and classes can be held.

"We would like to have more classes," Lingo said. "There are a lot of education classes like that we can offer: financial planning, pre-retirement planning, information about nursing homes or even funeral needs. But here, we don't have a place."

"We need a home of our own," Faust said. "For those of us here now, we could get by in this building. But we're thinking toward the future. If you can't do something for people for the future, you haven't done anything."

The Clark street site cost about $47,500. Lingo said the center has raised about that same amount.

"We're going to borrow the money for the building and continue fund-raising," she said.

Officials from the senior center have been talking with bankers about borrowing $300,000.

"If we can't borrow that much, we hope to borrow enough to get the walls up and the kitchen operating," Lingo said. "We can do the rest ourselves or a little at a time. We have seniors who are carpenters and who can do dry wall and lay carpeting."

Representatives from the center are canvassing businesses asking for monetary support or donations of supplies, equipment, labor or other services.

"We don't expect this building to be handed to us, but we do need support from the community.

"These people have contributed a lot to the community over the years. I feel we need to support them now. Besides, we're all getting older."