Province boosts funding for seniors centres, programs in northwestern Ontario

The provincial government is helping seniors centres in northwestern Ontario continue to offer programming with more than $925,000 in grant funding.

The funding was announced Tuesdayat a media event held at the Rural 60 Plus centre in Kakabeka Falls. Nearly 30 centres, clubs, and programs in communities across the region including Thunder Bay, Dryden, Atikokan, Fort Frances, Geraldton, Nipigon, and Kenora received some of the funding.

"I've had the opportunity to be in severalof the active living centres across Thunder Bay, and the programming they're offering to our older adults is phenomenal," Kevin Holland, MPP for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, said after announcing the funding. "I see it in the faces of the people that participate in these centres, how, how much value they get out of the programs."

Lucy Kloosterhuis, mayor of Oliver Paipoonge and Rural 60 Plus centre board member, said the funding is critical to keeping the centre running.

"If we did not get these operating funds, we wouldn't be open," she said. "Our operating funds have continued to increase every year, for at least the last four years. And in our applications, we ask for certain amount of money to keep our centre open and the province is always approved it."

Kloosterhuissaid rising costs for things like hydro and building maintenance are straining the centre's budget. But, she said, places like the 60 Plus Centre provide very important services.

"It's very, extremely important," she said. "During COVID, people were stuck at home, especially seniors who didn't have transportation or couldn't go out to events."

"And then after COVID was over, what we tried is to have events to get people out of their homes, especially people who have lost their spouse," Kloosterhuissaid."Some of them don't have vehicles. Theirchildren live out of town, they don't have many friends and we try to get someone [to] pick them up, bring them out here so that they can communicate with each other."

"Losing your spouse is extremely difficult, especially as you're getting older," she said. "And if you do not have the family support, it's very, very hard on people, especially in the rural areas, because there's large distances between their homes."

The Thunder Bay money will go to the various senior centres to help with programming, said Twyla Biluk, the city's supervisor of community programs for older adults.

The programs, she said, help give seniors a social outlet.

"It really combats feelings of depression and isolation for people when you're at home," she said. "And for some of our older adults, they're at that point in their life where they've had a lot of loss."

"They've lost a lot of their friends, they've lost a lot of family. And these centres provide that, for people to come in to be able to socialize, see other people, and combat the depression and loneliness they may feel on a day-to-day basis."