Year in Review 2017: Blaine Senior Center

By Kathy Sitker, director

This year has been exciting at the Blaine Senior Center. As part of the National Council of Senior Centers, I noted the theme this year was Senior Centers: Masters of Aging! We strive to offer programming and activities to empower, enlighten, engage and enrich. In 2017, our membership increased by 180 people.

We added some new activities this year: a book club, genealogy class for beginners, movie matinee and Mahjong. For those that wanted more exercise, we added line dancing and tap dancing.

Our existing activities such as the Saturday Jam Session is becoming popular among the members even so far as they started playing during the week. And the BUG (Blaine Ukulele Group) keeps growing.

With the help of the Blaine Birch Bay Park and Recreation District 2, we were able to purchase a Nu-Step T5 Recumbent Cross Trainer to serve more seniors striving to maintain their health and fitness! And with a matching gift challenge from one of our members, we were able to purchase a new commercial range as ours was no longer working. Thank you to all who donated.

Our annual events were wonderful and successful! Thank you for all who helped with the Rummage Sale, the Tea “In the Garden” and the Pasta and Lights. We also worked our tails off at the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast. Something new this year was the Gear Heads Classic Car Show and Pancake Breakfast. We baked cookies for our “Cookie Walk” at the Harbor Holiday Lights bazaar (We will be having our bazaar next year).

For fun, we took a two hour tour on The Plover. We participated in the Senior Day in the Park with the other Whatcom County senior centers. We partnered up with Bellair Travel and took a trip to Washington State Fairgrounds for “A Victorian Country Christmas.” Those who attended insist we go back in 2018. We also participated in the All-County Bocce Tournament in Lynden. We might not have won, but we had fun!

It’s been a great year and looking forward to 2018!