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January 21, 2005/Shevat 11 5765, Vol. 57, No. 21
Deadline extended for senior center
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Plans for the relocation of the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center Senior Center are nearly complete, pending final negotiations with a kosher food vendor, according to JCC officials.
"Things are beginning to fall in place, but they're not yet there," said Mark Shore, JCC president.
The senior center must vacate its current leased facility at 1805 W. Montebello Ave. to make room for the Phoenix light rail project. The deadline has been extended to Feb. 28, Shore said, although the center will move earlier if possible.
The JCC has been working with the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, Area Agency on Aging, the City of Phoenix and Beth El Congregation to find a new place, said Shore. The last detail is to finalize the contract with a kosher vendor, who would serve hot kosher meals to seniors, both through the senior center's congregant meal program and the home delivery program - two main components of the center.
Beth El, a Conservative synagogue in Phoenix that is about two miles from the center's current location, will lease space to the JCC, Shore said, once the synagogue board approves the contract. The plan is for the JCC to provide transportation from the seniors' residences to Beth El and back home again.
Seniors who attend programs at the center are still worried about the center's fate.
"We really don't know what's happening," said Ruth Rabin, a regular visitor to the center. "Nobody's come to talk to us about anything.
"It's aggravating," she said. "We all live day to day, we don't know what's happening."
Irwin Kanefsky, chairman of the JCC board, said that the JCC is "trying to do everything we can because these people are very important to us."
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