March 2012 Welcome Hand Newsletter
in Adobe PDF format.

 

Upcoming Events

Florence Douglas Senior Center
35th Anniversary March 1977-2012

Though it has served some of the oldest citizens in Vallejo, a senior center which opened in 1977 was, in a sense, a pioneer forging new territory.

Prior to the Florence Douglas Senior Center at 333 Amdor St, Vallejo had no formal facility to help senior citizens with meals, social activities, recreation, resources and many other services.

A bedrock of the senior community, the center celebrates it's 35th anniversary late Friday afternoon with a St. Patrick's Day Dinner. Complete with dinner served by Mayor Osby Davis and other City Council members, the event will be a time to reflect on the center's place in vallejo's history.

A volunteer-driven orginization, the center's roots go back to 1965 with the passage of the Older American Act which required communities to respond to the lack of community social services for seniors, the center's Executive Director Vicki Conrad said.

In Vallejo, then Mayor Florence Douglas (the center's namesake) appointed the late senior advocate Lou Burgelin to form a committee which would study and organize the best way to open a senior facility.

Early in 1975, Housing and Urban Developemnt authorized $100,000 and later Mayor Douglas designated $119,000 to build the faciility on a vacant parcel on Amador Street.

Since its beginning the center has operated as a nonprofit under the Vallejo Senior Citizens Council Inc. A final building permit was issued in August 1976 and construction began the next day. The center was complete and fully operational by May of 1977.

For several years, the center existed primarily as a place for senior clubs to meet, but that changed in the 1980s when funding was secured to offer daily meals.

Also in the late 1980s, the center became severly overcrowded (particularly the space where Bingo games were held) and the council started exploring options.

Several avenues were pursued, and the senior council nearly signed a $625,000 purchase agreement to buy a city owned parcel but backed out when the city Council did not agree to up some a share of the funding, records show.

Instead a $382,000 state Community Development Block grant was secured in 1992 to greatly expand the center on Amador street to include a recreation center, a health room, bigger gift shop and space, new library, parking lot and side-walks.