Senior center picnic draws 'huge' crowd

Mother Nature forced the Senior Spring Picnic at the Senior Community Center of Owensboro-Daviess County to be moved inside Thursday, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the “huge” crowd that turned out to enjoy the food and fellowship.

The event, which celebrated Older Americans Month, also reinstated a pre-COVID tradition, with seniors from Hancock, Henderson, Ohio, Union and Webster counties joining the party.

“Different senior centers would go and visit the other ones for special events,” said Becky Barnhart, executive director of the senior center, of the tradition. “That kind of added to our crowd.”

Hospice & Palliative Care of Western Kentucky organized the event.

“For me personally, I just saw what was happening in the community with the senior center, trying to get a new facility, and that touched me,” said Caleb Farkas, Hospice’s business development manager. “It was something I wanted to support. It started with that — figure out an idea to fundraise and help the senior center and also have other groups like Hospice & Palliative Care of Western Kentucky that work heavily with the senior population show their support for them.”

There was no shortage of activities for those in attendance, with musical and magic performances and a game of bingo being big crowd pleasers.

There were also several individual games provided by area sponsors that offered prizes, including axe throwing, fishing, a ball toss and corn hole, among others.

“I wanted us to work with different organizations in the community, so I kind of had the idea of not doing your typical health fair where there’s just booths and you’re getting handed brochures,” Farkas said. “I wanted to do fun games, so each sponsor today brought a fun game, and then we had all of our hard costs covered by ourselves and Twin Rivers (Nursing and Rehabilitation), so every other group that was here, their sponsorship fee was really just a donation to the senior center.”

Farkas said close to $2,500 was raised for the senior center.

Volunteers from numerous organizations, along with senior center board members and staff, helped with the games and served food, which was provided at no cost by Morrison Healthcare Food Services, which contracts with Owensboro Health.

Elizabeth Johnson, who lives in Philpot, said she generally visits the senior center to play bingo and eat. She said the picnic was a “wonderful” event.

“I think the fellowship and people coming together, talking to each other, communication, I thought that was really great,” she said. “And the food was good.”

Farkas said the event exceeded his expectations.

“The turnout was fantastic,” he said. “We were hoping for 100 (people), and I think we had over 150 by our last count.”