Active Living at the Seniors Centre: a conversation with Executive Director Don Amos

"We're built on four pillars as an organization and the key pillar is socialization. When retirement hits, often people will say, oh, I've got this great bucket list. And often people will plow through it in the first year, then sometimes the couch turns into your friend.  The TV turns into your friend, and then you become a little bit more sedentary, and that's when it becomes dangerous for your health. And so that's why the social component for us is so important."

-Don Amos, Executive Director, Seniors Association in Kingston

The Seniors Association in Kingston is a not-for-profit, charitable volunteer run organization dedicated to keeping seniors active, involved, connected, and supported. Members can choose from over 250 engaging and stimulating programs, both at the centre on Francis Street in Kingston, but also through online courses and a phone from home program. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Community Connections, a compassionate communities Kingston podcast. Compassionate Communities Kingston was founded in 2017 to bring the global compassionate communities movement to Kingston. We are inspiring intergenerational compassion in our communities by providing older adults with knowledge, connection, and support, promoting vitality, purpose, and a sense of well-being. Here is your host, Nancy Corrigan.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

The Seniors Association in Kingston is a not-for-profit, charitable, volunteer-run organization dedicated to keeping seniors active, involved, connected, and supported. Members can choose from over 250 engaging and stimulating programs, both at the Center on Francis Street in Kingston, but also through online courses and a phone-from-home program. Today on the podcast, we're having a conversation with Don Amos, the Executive Director of the Seniors Association. Don is a Kingston native with a background in child and youth work and experience in supporting rural and military families. He works with the Senior Center team to enhance the quality of life for seniors in our community and to support seniors living vibrant lives through community engagement, lifelong learning, and holistic well-being programs. I'd like to start by asking you about your journey to becoming an executive director at the Senior Center and tell me a little bit about your role there.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

I started my career with the Kingston Military Family and Resource Center and worked with them for a number of years as a child needs worker and then worked my way up the organization. I eventually became their interim executive director. And from there I had an opportunity to run an organization, Rural Frontenac Community Services, up in Sharpit Lake, working with a number of individuals ranging from economically depressed sections of Frontenac County to two indigenous populations, to young moms and seniors. And then I saw an opportunity to come back into Kingston. The executive director of the day was retiring, and I was lucky enough to get the position, and I've been in it for almost 12 years now, and it's been a very exciting opportunity, and one I have never regretted.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

The Senior Center has quite a history. I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about its evolution over time.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

It was actually two organizations at one point. And it was a seniors' day program, and then there was a seniors association, and they amalgamated, so we are actually celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. They started in the basement of City Hall. The opportunity became available when the Portsmouth Public School was brought onto the market. City Kingston purchased it, and then there were lots of conversations between the board of directors of the Seniors Association and the City. The city was kind enough to give them a loan. Lots of capital fundraising took place, and we retrofitted the building to what it is now. It's turned into more of a recreation facility with a restaurant and cafe. We're now celebrating 25 years in the building. We have thoroughly outgrown it with 5,700 members, but it is still the mothership.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, 5,700 members.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah, yeah, it's been growing pretty rapidly. Last fall alone, we had roughly 400 new members join us, and that's a lot of engagement. And to the point where we now have a number of off-site locations throughout the city of Kingston and Loyalist Township, you can only hold so many programs at the Francis Street location.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Do you have to be a senior?

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Nope. We say in our membership uh that you have to be 18 plus, but I will say this: the bulk of our membership is 60 plus. We do a lot of our primary advertising to 50 plus. It's neat to see the multi-generationals that come into our facility. We've got boomers that are now retiring and almost fully retired now. We've got the silent generation that were ahead of them, and they're obviously fully retired and enjoying all aspects of what we offer. And now we have the Gen X group, and they're starting to dabble with us in testing our programs in the evening and on the weekend. And then we we do have some 30-year-olds and 40-year-olds that are in the membership, and they're often taking our evening and weekend programs. It's neat to see the different age groups come together. It's neat to see the supportive network that is established with all of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Absolutely. Let's talk a bit about the programs.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

We're up to 250 programs that we offer per session. We're built on four pillars as an organization. And one is is mental stimulation. So we're making sure that we're offering programs that are stimulating your mind. And so we have a program called Later Life Learning, a lecture type series, presenters that come in and just offer that knowledge-based experience. And so that's that's that that pillar. Physical activity is another one of one of our core pillars. So of the 250 programs that we offer, I would say roughly half are close to physical type activities, whether it's Pilates, yoga, actual fitness classes, anything that keeps the body moving. And it can range from chair yoga to full-fledged on-the-floor yoga and chair fitness classes to stand-up full-fledged fitness classes. The other pillar that we're offering is food. So we have a restaurant and cafe where we offer lunch and breakfast services. The fourth component, which is our biggest component, and that's the key pillar, if you will, is socialization. That's the one where we are purposely trying one to keep our program costs low. That's that socialization component that is so key. When you walk down the hallway, you can feel the energy in the building. And you look in a classroom and you'll see people laughing or giggling, and you can see a lot of head nodding and brain engagement and recognition of, okay, this is kind of cool, what I'm learning. I'll give you an example. We have a woodworking shop, and I would say it would rival any woodworking shop in the city. I remember seeing one lady in there, and I just went up and was asking her what she was drawing, and and she was telling me a little bit about her story, how she worked her whole life and raised her kids, and her dad was a woodworker, uh, carver, and she just didn't have the time and ability to follow in his footsteps, and always wanted to learn, um, but just didn't have that ability and time. Now she does. I've had w one lady come up as recently as a couple of weeks ago, and and she said, This organization has saved my life. About a year ago I lost my husband. She said I became lost. My friend network was a lot of it was him. And she got a program guide and started perusing through it, and she just picked a program, and then she now has three, four friends in that program. And they'll often meet uh either before or after the program in the cafe, they'll have a coffee, they'll laugh. And she said, I never would have had that experience of gaining that friend network again unless I joined. And so that's the importance of what it meant to her. When we're in a working environment, we have lots of people around us. We have lots of coworkers and we have lots of conversations, and then we go home sometimes to a loved one and sometimes to ourselves, but we've had that social engagement throughout the day. And then retirement hits, and often people will say, Oh, I've got this great bucket list, and this bucket list is going to last me for years. And what people don't realize is, yeah, that bucket list could last you for years, but you now have a lot of more time in your hands. And oftentimes people will plow through it in the first year. But sometimes then the couch turns into your friend and the TV turns into your friend, and then you become a little bit more sedentary, and that's when it becomes dangerous for your health. And so that's why that social component for us is so important. I run a program, and it's unusual for a seniors association to do this, but we run a motorcycle program. We have about 15 to 25 riders on our list, and we do a ride once a month starting in May and go straight through to October. Usually it's between 12 and 15 riders out of the 25 that always show up, and it kind of rotates in that number. One day we had, it was rainy, and so I put an email out saying, hey, it's it's just too wet. Um, we're gonna shut the program down. It's just uh we're gonna leave it at that. The one guy didn't get the email. He gets off his bike and he wanders over to us and he said, Hey, where's the rest of the group? And we're like, Yeah, we kind of shut it down because it's so wet today. And he was telling us a little bit about his story, how he lost his wife a couple years ago. He lives out in the country, doesn't really see his neighbors a lot, and he saw our program and thought he'd show up. And he goes often many, many days without talking to anybody. And he thought, well, this is uh he wanted to come out and try it, and he loves motorcycling. It did get sunny, and we took him, we had lunch in Perth with him, and then we worked our way back. Uh, we we as we approached the city coming back into Glen Burney, he was waving on his bike to us to and he pulled us over because it was just the three of us. And so we pulled over and we got off our bikes and he got off, and he actually came over and gave us both a hug. Oh. And he's like, You have no idea what this means to me. He said, All of those aspects we did today, I wouldn't have done by myself. And I would have sat home all by myself, lonely. And that's when he gave us a hug, and then he hopped on his bike and he said, I'll be back. Yeah. Those type of experiences that you always cherish and think about we're doing good things.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

You also have online programs as well, right, to help people who maybe can't get out to the city.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah, it's called the Phone From Home program, completely free. It's sponsored by the City of Kingston. Melanie, who was our coordinator for that program, she'll run programs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. They're one-hour programs, one in the morning and then one in the afternoon. We were trying to figure out what's the program that is the least expensive for someone who is socially isolated. They just can't get out of their home. Melanie will bring in guest speakers to talk about various aspects of life. She'll play games, whether it's a like a bingo game or music trivia. And oftentimes I'll go past Melanie's office and I'll hear her giggling and laughing away. So that tells me that the program is being fully engaged in lots of chatter uh with people on the phones. And this program is completely free. We've had uh guest speakers in the past. Um, we brought a pharmacist in, and the pharmacist talked about the effects of marijuana and prescription drugs. People were very curious about that, and we had close to 25 callers for that one. We're a firm believer of bringing down barriers, pushing the envelope, um, because seniors want to learn about stuff. Bill and Jane will often be on the same call together over a couple of courses, so they get to know each other and they recognize the voices and they recognize the names, and then they start asking about each other's backgrounds and just nice general conversations. Yeah. And that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Aaron Ross Powell Kingston is has a pretty large senior population. Yeah. So it strikes me that, you know, having this diversity of programming is so important for our community in Kingston and that we need to look after our seniors, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yeah. Yeah. Fully agree. And that and we know that Kingston is the number two destination in Ontario for retirement. The Kingston Seniors Association is the largest in Ontario. There's close to 300 seniors active living centers in the province. We're the largest people coming in and retiring here. And it helps that we've got major institutions and post-secondary institutions that add to that atmosphere of the ability to retire.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

What about volunteers at the center? You must have a lot of volunteers with all of these programs. Do you welcome anyone to come and volunteer?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Absolutely. We've got a little over 500 volunteers right now. The association cannot operate without the volunteers. All ages? All ages, yep. The majority are retired. But our doors cannot open without our volunteers. Our cafe is 100% run by volunteers. The front end of our restaurant is run by volunteers. Our reception, they're volunteers. Our Vista newsletter that we put out every month, roughly 220 to 230 volunteers have a finger touch point on that Vista newsletter, ranging from writing an article to being a contributing editor, setting up the delivery. People will come in on the third Friday of the of the month and they'll do a bunch of labeling. And then we have a whole team of volunteers that will come in to pick up their bundles, and then out they go and deliver it to all the membership. It's awe-inspiring to see the amount of volunteers that are doing that.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah. Don, what's your favorite part of your work?

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I would say walking down the hallways, and I look in a room, and it could be someone taking a line dancing class. Big smile on their face when they're learning the step of the line dancing. Or I look in the woodworking class and I see an instructor talking to a student. Those are the neat experiences of people just enjoying their membership and being active and engaged, and that's what works for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Thank you, Don, so much for speaking with me today. It was a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

That was awesome. Thank you for inviting me. I I've uh this is a neat experience.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Thank you for listening to Community Connections, hosted by Nancy Corrigan and produced by Soundwise in Kingston, Ontario. Voiceover by Neil Carey. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it and subscribe where possible. For more information, visit compassionatekingston.ca.