Can-do attitude: Senior Center supporters aim to raise $30,000 in 30 days

 By Jan Jackson

Seemingly undaunted by the need to raise $30,000 in less than 30 days, more than 75 optimistic supporters of the Silverton Area Senior Center showed up for its ground-breaking ceremony Aug. 18. 

If the community can raise $30,000 by the Sept. 15 deadline, the Ford Family Foundation in Roseburg will give the senior center a matching grant of $100,000, said Silverton Area Senior Center President Ray Hunter. 

“We are the kind of community that meets or exceeds our goals and expectations and I think we’ll make the deadline,” Mayor Stu Rasmussen said while waiting for the ceremonies to start. “It has been Silverton’s dream to have a stand-alone senior center since I was first on the council in 1984 and probably before. It is too hard to turn our backs on that kind of money. I think we’ll find a way to raise it.”

Rasmussen, along with Hunter; soon-to-be retired Silverton public works director Rich Barstad; Rowell-Brokaw & Assoc., chief project architect Peter King; Woodburn Construction project general contractor Terry Winters; and Silverton Area Senior Center longtime employee/volunteer Ruth Cock all donned hard hats, picked up golden shovels and officially broke the ground for the senior center. 

Hunter, who as been a Silverton resident since 2005 and is on his second term as president of the Silverton Area Seniors, is also positive about the community’s ability to meet the deadline.

“We just can’t lose $100,000 for the lack of $30,000, ” Hunter said. “I am confident that PGE, other major Silverton businesses and individual members of the community will do what it takes to help us make it. The SAS board of directors met yesterday and will meet weekly until we get the job done. We are not mailing anything, we are meeting with people face-to-face. 

“The total project cost for the new center is $1.6 million and we have already received $1.2 million toward that from the state. Major contributors in the community have been Silverton Hospital, the Larry and Jeanette Epping Trust, Silverton Rotary and Silverton Rotary Foundation and around $25,000 – ranging in amounts from $10 to $3,000 – have come from individual donors.

“If we can raise $30,000 in the next 30 days, we will receive that matching $100,000 from the Ford Family Foundation, which brings the total to $1.5 million and means it will be close to being paid for. I think we can do it,” Hunter said.

During the ceremonies, an additional voice of support came from Cindy Schaeffer, director of the Silverton Youth Peer Court Program.

“These young people already had a Senior Citizen Appreciation Day planned for Saturday, Sept. 12, and now they are going to add fundraising for the new SAS center,” Schaeffer said. “These kids have worked on this project for four months and are pumped about even doing more to help make the senior center become a reality. We are inviting everyone to Town Square Park for morning self-guided mural walks and bike rides. In the afternoon, we’ll be at the new high school for a film showing of the documentary ‘Young at Heart,’ lunch, dancing to a salsa band, Wii video tennis and bowling tournaments and Bingo. You can bet the donation buckets will be out.”