Senior center in Jackson offers more than meals

News: The Jackson Senior Center now has a sign marking the center's new site located on Travelers Way (off East Main Street, Jackson).

Activities: Upcoming activities include an Easter egg hunt April 17 and a trip to the Charleston Azalea Festival on April 24. Call the center at 243-4241 for more information. Other upcoming activities include the center's annual Meals on Wheels Walk-A-Thon at 9 a.m. May 16 at the center.

On the first Thursday of the month a covered dish supper is held at 6 p.m. Cards and games follow the meal.

To offer more activities, the center is seeking an instructor for PACE exercise, painting and gardening.

Monthly activities include birthday and anniversary parties, bingo, card playing, sing-alongs, trips, board games, special music and dancing.

Referrals are available for the following services: legal aid, counseling, in-home service, nurses, homemakers, taxes, housing or senior employment. If you have any need for help with home repairs, handicapped equipment, etc., call Debbie Stockton, director of the Jackson Senior Center, and she will find an organization to help.

Other services include blood pressure, hearing, glucose and vision screening; nutrition education, chiropractic and diabetic programs, A.P.P.L.E. paperwork service, health and Alzheimer's information.

Nutrition: The center serves lunch to seniors 60 and over; the meal includes a meat choice, vegetables, salad, drink and dessert, at a suggested price of $2.50. Serving takes place between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Monday to Friday. We bake our bread and desserts.

Home-delivered meals are available to all homebound seniors and to handicapped aged 18 to 59.

Socialization: The fellowship that participants experience is an important part of our daily existence. All seniors are welcome at the center's parties, activities and programs.

Fund raisers: The center is currently collecting aluminum cans and Best Choice bar codes to purchase a computer and printer for the center. The tabs from the cans are given to area schoolchildren collecting them for Ronald McDonald House. Thanks to the community for their help in saving aluminum cans for the center (and to Mary Jansen, Jim Ford and Ruby and Sloan Tuschhoff for providing dance music at our March birthday party).

About people at the center: Director Debbie Stockton and her husband, Scott, live in Oak Ridge with their parrot. Stockton's parents, Jesse and Joyce McIntyre, live there as well.

Stockton has worked at the center for a decade, and the center is fortunate to have someone who cares and has such an interest in senior citizens. "Call me for any information you need," she says.

Virgil Greene, our volunteer handyman, works at washing pots and pans to fixing the roof. Most recently he spent months visiting other centers to gather information and then drew up preliminary plans for a new center. Greene enjoys games and cards, bingo and helping people. He is a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. Greene and his wife, Gretchen, live in the Bella Vista area in Jackson. They have five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.