A celebratory lunch was held at the Thorold Seniors' Centre on Thursday. The Thorold Senior Citizens Association has successfully re-negotiated their lease with the City, and they’re excited for what the future will bring.
“It’s just absolutely fantastic,” says the association’s president Brenda Bator, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “We go for another five years and this time we have more money for programming and things that we need that we didn’t have before.”
Under the terms of the new Lease Agreement, a significant amount of the administrative expenses will shift to the City so that available funding can be directed to programming initiatives.
The city will take care of the staffing and occupancy costs, and the association will not have to pay rent.
“The city has really come through for us,” explains Bator. “It’s just absolutely amazing.”
During the pandemic, the Thorold Seniors’ Centre was on life support, but these days the community hub is bustling with activity.
“There are so many plans,” Bator says. “There’s different programs we want to do. We want to become involved with the shuffle board association. We want to have tournaments for corn hole and our pool room is getting a rehab.”
The association is applying for grants to help them put on more programming and spruce up the facility.
“One grant would give us a big beautiful deck out the front of this building so that we can utilize it for picnics and get-togethers,” says Bator.
Re-negotiating the lease was a challenge but Bator is excited for what the future will bring.
“Nothing is easy — you got to work for it,” she says. “But we were very fortunate that we had [City Hall’s Director of Community Services] Geoff Holman who was directly involved with us through the process. He got us to where we needed to be and we’re a big fan of his. [The city] came through 150 per cent for us. We’re really excited about that.”
