Hoover Senior Center to reopen June 1 after 14 1/2-month shutdown

The Hoover Senior Center is reopening June 1 after being closed to the public for 14½ months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Restrictive guidelines from the Alabama Department of Senior Services will end on May 31, making it easier to function in a normal capacity, said Dana Henson, manager of the Senior Center.

The Hoover Senior Center will operate much as it did before the pandemic, with a few tweaks, Henson said.

As of early May, two-thirds of Alabamians age 65 or older had been vaccinated, and vaccines have been readily available for the public to access, according to the governor’s office.

People visiting the Hoover Senior Center will have a choice of whether they want to wear a mask, Henson said.

Some regular attendees are very much ready to come back to the center, but some who have not gotten their vaccine yet are nervous about, it, she said.

Some of the center’s classes will have smaller class sizes, and some schedules have been tweaked because some of the instructors who were there before have taken different jobs, Henson said.

The staff at the center hasn’t been idle while the facility was closed, however.

They converted some of their programs to virtual programs made available on Facebook, including educational programming, exercise programs and programs based on hobbies, Henson said. There were virtual art classes, Zoom book clubs, an online crochet group and virtual computer instruction, she said.

Staff at the center also conducted “social-distanced” visits with seniors and converted their daily meal service to a curbside pickup service, with delivery for seniors who relied on the Clastran transportation service, Henson said.

Staff members also made phone calls to check on seniors and held monthly drive-through events, such as a Halloween costume drive-through and drive-through canned food drive, she said. The goal was to help break up the monotony for seniors stuck at home and provide ways for them to connect with other people, she said.

Senior center staff also wanted to let seniors know that they were not forgotten, that they were missed and that staff members were still there to serve them, she said.

The Zoom calls and virtual programs were good, but people miss that personal interaction, Henson said.

“I think they’re going to love it,” she said of the reopening of the facility. “They’re just going to be excited to see each other.”