Senior Center Keeps Folks Feeling Young

Opening its doors to showcase the wide variety of services and programs for the San Fernando Valley’s elderly residents, the Senior Service and Resource Center in Reseda drew hundreds to its first open house on Thursday.

“People in the community ought to know what we actually do here,” said Lola Rabow, director of the 11-year-old facility operated by Organization for the Needs of the Elderly. “I want the younger community to know that we’re here for their parents, we’re here for their children.”

All around her, the center’s multipurpose room hummed with activity as volunteers and visitors showed off the various classes and programs offered five days a week.

At one table, Margie Mears and Sylvia Krasell were painting.

“It’s so therapeutic, you forget everything else,” Mears said while finishing a brightly colored portrait of two cats.

“It’s like you’re getting yourself into another world.”

Krasell said the classes not only provide outlets for untapped talent, they also offer opportunities for friendship and company.

“If a person’s lonely, this is the place to come,” she said. “It gets your life going.”

Rabow agrees.

“When people come in they feel the energy here,” she said, noting that it defies the senior-center stereotype of old folks sitting around playing cards or watching television.

Elsewhere in the spacious room, seniors from classes such as yoga and tai chi demonstrated that growing old doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down. Joe Siracusa, a former member of Spike Jones’ band, spiced up the routine by the “body dynamics” dance class with a cartoon cacophony of sound effects.

“You’re the life of the party, I’ll bet,” Krasell said afterward, prompting a grateful smile from the 74-year-old Tarzana resident who has spent his life making people laugh.

“I don’t want to stop now,” he said.