By Julia Train
The City of Somers Point, as part of its goal to include citizens of all ages and backgrounds, is adding recreational programs for senior citizens.
Most of the initiatives being put in place were already once part of the city’s recreation, but were done away with during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recreation Director Doug Shallcross said it took them longer to be reinstated because the department was trying to gauge the seniors’ interests.
“Part of it was that for a period of time following the pandemic, seniors tended to refrain from large groups. They still were kind of worried,” said Shallcross.
The Recreation Board meets every month and wanted to get feedback directly from seniors, so they reached out to them through newspapers to attend a meeting and share their thoughts. June’s meeting brought in about 30 people, which Shallcross said was a great turnout.
Shallcross said older citizens are a bit more difficult to obtain feedback from, compared to the younger ones.
“[Feedback for other age groups] comes more easily because it’s the parents who will reach out. They’re more tech savvy in that sense where they can easily send an email or send a text to my work phone,” said Shallcross.
All programs will and are taking place in the Senior Center, located at 22 North Ambler Road.
As of right now, there’s a group of seniors who play pinochle on Wednesday nights, a yoga class running every Tuesday night for the next six weeks and a Creative Flow Writer’s Group presented by the Somers Point Arts Commission on the third Sunday of every month.
The Board is in the process of trying to bring back lunches and more classes that the seniors would be interested in.
Somers Point’s Recreation Department oversees the fields for football, hockey, baseball and softball in town, and coordinates events like the beach concerts with a couple Monday night concerts in the summer for children. It also organizes the easter egg hunt and National Night Out, and oversees the Youth Center building.
The City of Somers Point offers free activities for both locals and visitors, aiming to be inclusive of all ages and backgrounds.
For other age groups, there’s “We Walk Somers Point” every Monday at 8:30 am, where citizens can walk around the city, getting to know each other. Soon the city will be offering pickleball, shuffleboard and tennis.
“We want to use the spaces that we have and put on great events, but we want the people of Somers Point to be interested because it’s for them. We’re not doing it for ourselves. We’re doing this for the residents of Somers Point,” said Shallcross.
