Adult Services Center to Expand

Officials at Acacia Adult Day Services expect to break ground in March on an 8,600-square-foot addition to their care center near Civic Center Plaza.

The nonprofit organization’s board of directors approved a contract this week with Prime Time Builders for the $3-million project.

The organization, which provides day care and adult day care services for elderly and disabled adults and their families, is still trying to raise about $395,000 for the project. They want to avoid taking out a mortgage.

The addition will allow the center to care for about 110 seniors, or twice as many as are being served now, “which makes us happy because at no time do we want to turn away a family that needs us,” said Mallory Vega, executive director of the center.

Vega says there are about 16 centers in Orange County that provide services for seniors who are not ready for a convalescent home but are no longer independent.

“The centers that are in operation right now are meeting about 43% of the need in the county,” Vega said. “Families are making do. But there are still a lot of families that don’t know that adult day services and health services are available.”

Vega said the recent murder-suicide of a Seal Beach couple especially struck a chord. The 81-year-old man who killed his wife before taking his own life was worried about who would care for her--she was beginning to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

“We try so hard to let people know that we’re here and then you read an article like that and you think, ‘We weren’t able to reach them,’ ” she said.

The center began serving the elderly in Orange County in 1979 shortly after the late Rev. J. Miles Acker Jr. saw an adult day services center on a vacation in Hawaii. He felt that there was a need for such a center in Orange County and particularly Garden Grove.

The center was created and operated out of the United Methodist Church on Main Street through a partnership with the city and became a nonprofit organization in 1985. In 1993 the center added adult health services, which include monitoring seniors’ medication and diabetes, checking their weight and providing other routine medical needs.

“When we started that program, we pretty much created a situation that outgrew the church,” Vega said.

The center kicked off its first fund-raising campaign in 1995 to build a new center, but instead moved into the current facility across from City Hall in 1997. Vega said the board decided it was more important to begin serving the seniors it could and add to the building as funds became available.

“When we get a family that does need us, we try to add them in a day at a time until we can find a permanent schedule for them,” Vega said.

--Chris Ceballos can be reached at (714) 966-7440.