LAGUNA NIGUEL : Drive to Begin for New Senior Center

The city’s seniors will walk the streets in coming weeks, asking businesses, civic groups and neighbors to contribute $250,000 for the new Laguna Niguel Senior Citizens Center.

Members of the Laguna Niguel Senior Citizens Club plan to launch the drive in November. Major donors are targeted first.

The money will pay to furnish the center, which is now under construction near the corner of Aliso Creek Road and Moulton Parkway.

“We’ll start out by soliciting some of the major businesses, developers and corporations in Laguna Niguel,” said Hal Bayer, leader of the fund drive. Those potential donors will be given the opportunity to endow or furnish an entire room or provide some other major element to the center, he said.

In the following weeks, the seniors will contact community groups, organizations, businesses and individual residents through mailings, meetings and a door-to-door walk.

Among the options being offered to donors of smaller amounts: $500 will earn a place on an “honor wall” inside the center; $100 will buy a decorative tile inscribed with the donor’s name or message. The tiles will be placed near the entrance to the center.

A citywide rummage sale is also planned for early next year, along with other fund-raisers such as bingo games.

“Wherever there’s a group in Laguna Niguel, we want to talk to them,” said David Graham, a member of the fund-raising committee.

Construction on the $3.4-million senior center began in August and is scheduled to be completed next summer.

The senior citizens club began lobbying for an activity center before the city’s incorporation in 1989. The Laguna Niguel Community Service District, now a subsidiary agency of the city, responded by including the project in its parks and recreation master plan.

In return, the seniors’ club agreed to raise $250,000 for fixtures, furnishings and equipment.

The 800-member club is currently using a 3,000-square-foot, donated space in the La Paz Shopping Center.

The new senior center will have more than 14,000 square feet for social and recreational activities, classes, dinners and meetings. Although primarily for senior citizens’ use during the day, the center will be available to the general public and community groups in the evenings and on weekends.

Facilities will include a 2,200-square-foot, combination dining room-ballroom, kitchen, classrooms, billiards room, health and social services room, library, game parlor, offices, conference rooms, gift shop, patio and shuffleboard courts.

For more information, call (714) 362-2937.