A group of Los Gatos residents formed a nonprofit foundation to support older adults and create an all-ages community center.
The Los Gatos Foundation for Older Adults to Thrive aims to promote an age-friendly community and make the town a place where older adults are engaged, valued and provided equitable opportunity to flourish.
One of its central goals is creating a community center to serve as a hub for resources and promote intergenerational collaboration. The town council voted earlier this year to allocate $866,000 of its remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds to revamp the Adult Recreation Center into a community center.
The center was a key goal in the senior services roadmap, which was endorsed by the council in February. Members of the committee that created the roadmap said it will likely take close to a decade to develop and build a new center, and by revamping the ARC, they can begin addressing needs sooner.
“Our work to create the town’s senior services roadmap resulted in tremendous engagement of the Los Gatos community and was unanimously endorsed by the town council. It revealed the critical need for an intergenerational community center with dedicated space for older adults,” said committee member Tom Picraux.
The foundation will be responsible for securing grant funding and fundraising for the center. Some neighboring cities have new senior facilities, like Los Altos’ new $35 million city-funded facility and Palo Alto’s senior center.
The roadmap report illuminated several areas where the town could better support its older adult population, like boosting communication and engagement, creating an inventory of affordable senior housing and connecting seniors to resources. Town council, staff and now the foundation can tackle these issues in the coming years.
“Our goal is to move from a town with one of the regionally lowest, least coordinated efforts for senior services to a thriving age-friendly town where older adults provide substantial contributions and support,” the roadmap report reads.
The foundation held its first meeting Friday, Sept. 29, and elected Sandy Decker as board chair, Tom Picraux as president, councilmember Matthew Hudes as vice president, Ginger McDonald as secretary, Tim Lundell as treasurer and Teri Hope and Alan Feinberg as board members. Catherine Comers and Nancy Pearson will co-chair the board’s Initiatives and Publicity Committee.
“When I was elected to Los Gatos Town Council, I learned that our older adult community would soon be over 30% of our population, yet at the same time our senior services had fallen dramatically behind,” Hudes said. “Older Adults Thrive aims to fill the funding gap and help create a world-class community center and services that our older adult community and broader community deserve.”
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