By Leah Blain
On any given weekday, lunch hour the Seniors 5th Avenue Activity Centre has a steady flow of traffic thanks to their popular lunchtime program.
“Anybody can come,” says Karsten Jensen. “People bring their grandkids. A lot of people come everyday - it’s their meal of the day. You get a good portion, it’s a good price and, well, you can hear the buzz and the laughter.”
Karsten is one of the nine directors at the centre, and in charge of the kitchen. Wyn Gittins is also a director, in charge of activities.
“There are 19 official activities and each activity has a co-ordinator,” says Wyn.
He has been on the board for two years. He first used the centre a number of years ago when he needed a space to hold a St. David’s Day celebration.
“We met here – 40 people - and we had a jumping time of it. Now we’re getting larger and larger and we moved into the bigger hall,” he says pointing to the auditorium. In the hallway they keep a stack of coloured paper with the monthly menu on one side and a calendar of activities printed on the other. The activities include things like table tennis, line dancing, darts, square dancing, crib, social bridge, scrabble, whist, and ukulele.
Wyn says these activities are popular and provide an invaluable service.
“As you get older you have to two options - stay at home and not interact, or get involved in some activities so you can interact with people.”
He gives himself as an example. As a widower, he chose to become involved in the community as opposed to staying at home with only his dog for company.
“Sam is very interesting, but he’s a dog and the conversation is one way,” he says with a laugh.
One challenge many seniors have with interacting is hearing loss, he says.
“We’ve just installed a loop system, the aural loop system,” he says as he walks into the auditorium. “They put the wire under the floor. So all you have to do on your hearing aid is plug into the system and when someone is speaking in the microphone, it goes straight into your hearing aid.”
He’s very happy with this major upgrade as well as those done to the kitchen.
“Just refurbishing the kitchen was $15,000,”
Holly Ready, who is a regular there at lunch time, says the food there is “far better” than what she cooks for herself.
“Karsten is a chef and he makes all kinds of fancy sauces, it’s not just ordinary,” she says.
Karsten is actually a retired industrial electrician but retirement didn’t suit him so he started a ‘new career’ as volunteer chef.
“I stayed up all night thinking about it,” he says about the lemon sauce for the chicken. “I’m concerned about what I’m making. At Christmas I don’t sleep for three weeks.”
Just down the hallway is the pool room with two large pool tables.
“I was asked to find some new covers,” says Wyn.
However, due to their large size it was impossible to find something made in Canada. He had the choice of buying American but he thought of a more local solution.
“I went to Fabricland and I bought cloth,” he says as he can’t help grinning, “in red and green, good Welsh colours.”