Mt. Morris Senior & Community Center rebrands to welcome all

MOUNT MORRIS – The Mt. Morris Senior Center entered May by rebranding as the Mt. Morris Senior & Community Center.

“We just want everyone to feel welcome at the center, and so we wanted to change the name so that people didn’t feel like they had to be old in order to come, because all ages are welcome,” Executive Director Melissa Rojas said. “We do everything. Anything that sounds like it would be fun, we do it.”

Located at 9 E. Front St., Mount Morris, the center has served the community since its incorporation in 1976, she said. A ribbon-cutting was held April 30 to mark the new name.

The center hosts an annual adult Easter egg hunt, an annual golf outing, regular card games, crafts and meals, exercise classes and multiple bus trips each year, Rojas said. There’s a bus trip to Mount Rushmore at the end of May and, come November, they’ll be going to New Orleans, she said.

Several community organizations hold meetings at the center, including Let Freedom Ring, the local Girl Scouts troop and American Legion Post No. 143, Rojas said. An Alcoholics Anonymous group meets there every Sunday, she said.

“What I think is crazy is somebody told me, ‘The Mt. Morris Senior Center is the best kept secret in Mount Morris because there are so many people who live in Mount Morris who don’t even know it exists,’” Rojas said.

Upstairs, there’s room for exercise classes and a pool table, and a medical supply room with things such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes, commodes, shower chairs and more that can be loaned out, she said.

“Our new thing is that we’re going to be putting a computer lab in,” Rojas said. “We’re going to be able to teach seniors or just anyone how to use their cellphone because lots of seniors, their kids are giving them iPhones but not really telling them how to use it, or they tell them and the seniors don’t remember.”

The computer lab also will allow center staff to assist with taxes through AARP, signing up for Medicare or other health insurance, faxing, making copies and other computer-use education, Rojas said.

Downstairs, there’s a large community room attached to a fully licensed commercial kitchen and the Doc Stangl Coffee Shop, she said.

“After exercise, they always go down there and eat popcorn and drink coffee,” Rojas said. “People are playing cards in there almost every afternoon.”

The Mt. Morris Senior & Community Center offers a membership, but having one isn’t required in order to take part in events and activities it hosts, Rojas said. A membership costs $25 annually, she said.

“With them coming up on 50 years of being in the community and sustaining themselves for that long to give back to the community, that’s just something that we’re all about and that we really support and agree with,” Oregon Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Chance Munroe said. “Just getting more people in there, especially if you get more membership signups, that would just be great, too.”

For information on the center, visit www.mmseniorcenter.com or call 815-734-6335.