Senior services in Burbank get boost from two private trusts

Two private trusts have bequeathed nearly $104,000 to Burbank for senior services at a time when tight budgets have been exerting added pressure on the programs.

The City Council last week officially accepted the $103,805 in combined donations from the two trusts that city officials first learned about in 2011.

“The fact that these two trusts were bequeathed at the same time was just an anomaly,” said Gaby Flores, deputy director of recreation services, noting that residents occasionally leave money in support of community services.

Rolf Larsen, who died April of 2011, left the city $70,000 and instructed officials to use the money at the Joslyn Senior Adult Center.

Known for having a “big heart,” Flores said, Larsen often paid for other seniors’ bus trips or registration fees for group trips and classes at the center.

His trust specified that the money could be used to pay for registration fees and suggested purchasing supplies or making minor improvements at the center.

The person behind the second trust, Sandra Calta, died January 2011. The city learned that her mother had bequeathed $33,805 to Burbank’s Supplemental Nutrition Program.

Calta’s mother — whose name was not immediately available — enrolled in the program, which delivers meals to Burbank residents who are 60 or older.

Each year, that program delivers about 42,500 meals, and another 46,000 meals are served at the Joslyn Adult Center, the McCambridge Park and Recreation Center and the Tuttle Senior Center.

Flores said the Calta trust will help improve the commercial kitchen at the Tuttle Senior Center where the fixtures and cabinets have remained the same since the center first opened in 1981.

Flores said donations to senior services by past participants are not unheard of because of Burbank’s “tight-knit community.”

“Our folks at our senior centers are very committed. They come in every day and on weekends,” she said. “We see that willingness.”