What's the Senior Center Village? Neighbors on Vashon coming together to:
- help each other… and be able to ask for help when you need it.
- connect, make friends, and support each other.
- enjoy community!
It can be a simple as creating a neighborhood phone tree.
It can be as grand as having regular neighborhood potlucks, taking trips in the Village bus and more.
BREAKING NEWS:
The Senior Center's Neighbor to Neighbor and Bluebird Programs are now under the Village umbrella!
When you need a ride to a medical appointment off island, a ride on island for any reason, or help with chores or shopping, now you can call upon the Senior Center Village.
Contact Villages Manager Fran Brooks at villages@vashoncenter.org or (206) 485-4335 to enroll.
Read on for more info!
Village Benefits:
- The Village Manager: Fran can help you with signing up, with technology and access, with organizing events and trips and more.
- The Village van: Villages can use the brand-new 10 passenger van to take field trips. Grandparents and grandkids can go to the zoo or Northwest Trek, a group can see a play or go to a museum… whatever you imagine!
- A dedicated neighborhood email routed through the Senior Center (such as townvillage@vashoncenter.org) - so that neighborhood leaders can communicate with their neighbors easily.
- A neighborhood iPad: to help village leaders sign up or orient new members, help someone access the Helpful Village website, email all the members with neighborhood news.
- This Helpful Village website: a way to stay in touch with each other and a way for people who need help to ask for it easily.
In a nutshell: The Senior Center provides the Village Manager and all administrative support: funding, liability insurance, background checks for Village Volunteers, technology and software, and everything listed above!
Ready to Enroll? Click here!
A Brief History and Thanks: The Village to Village movement began 20 years ago in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. Now there are Villages across the United States. To learn more, visit: vtvnetwork.org. Thanks to a grant from the King County Veterans, Seniors and Human Services Levy, the Vashon Senior Center is able to help neighborhoods on Vashon-Maury create their own Villages. So we can all grow older together.
Funding for this program is provided by