Your community senior center. Have you ever ventured inside? No? Perhaps because your engaged lifestyle doesn’t include Bingo, square dancing, and sing-alongs. Senior centers have noted your absence and are reinventing themselves to adapt to a more diverse and active older adult demographic.
It’s a complicated change for an institution that began post-WWII as an answer to the urban isolation of older adults. Today, about 11,000 senior centers operate in the U.S., most of them city- or county-funded and staffed. They now serve four generations of elderhood. It was the first cohort, the Greatest Generation born between 1901 and 1924, that established the model for the earliest centers. Having lived through two wars and the Great Depression without television and computers, they want regular opportunities to socialize over cards and crafts, and are often in need of the medical services and communal meals offered by their local center. Their successor, the Silent Generation (1925-45), prefers a variety of activity choices while the largest generation, Boomers (1946-64) are more interested in high-quality educational programs and short-term commitments. On deck is Generation X (1965-80), known for their skepticism of institutions and their demand for work-life balance. They start turning 60 in 2025. And it’s not just generational differences—the 50+ population is more racially, ethnically, and economically diverse than ever. We live longer and healthier lives. We have more free time. Finding the sweet spot that serves the oldest clients while enticing younger newcomers is an institutional challenge.
Eighty-five-year-old California philanthropist Wallis Annenberg believes it’s possible to overcome demographic differences and transform existing centers. With the right community space, 50+ adults can also become proactive change agents in how aging is portrayed. In 2022, Annenberg’s foundation funded and opened GenSpace in Los Angeles’ diverse Koreatown neighborhood. Located on the multigenerational campus of a Jewish synagogue in a modern, light-filled building spanning 7,000 square feet, GenSpace was designed to facilitate connection, lifelong learning, and a rebranded image. It’s not a senior center, emphasizes its founder—it’s a cultural space for older adults.
Activities include classes on meditation, Latin dancing, and belly dancing in a fitness studio. There’s a dedicated horticultural lab, an art studio, and a state-of-the-art tech bar with tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Members can also join the GenSpace Voices Choir or take a comedy writing and performance class.
What sets the place apart is its unabashed advocacy for more positive narratives of older adults by hosting conversations and special events to address the issue. In 2021, GenSpace convened a series called Aging Out Loud, launching it with a session called “Digital Bridges: Why the Future of Tech Depends on Older Adults.” Thirteen leaders in technology and aging discussed tech access gaps, the lack of age-friendly designs, and innovations to meet the needs of older adults. In 2022, it hosted a group of social impact leaders for a conversation about more inclusive media and workforce representation. Last year it previewed a free movie and invited the actors Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and Billy Porter to discuss ageism in the movie industry with GenSpace members and their guests—more than 200 Hollywood writers and storytellers.
Annenberg is hopeful GenSpace will serve as a model for centers elsewhere. The National Council on Aging agrees such changes are needed. In May 2023, they released a report, Modernizing Senior Centers Resource Center that encourages centers to upgrade facilities and programming, integrate technology and virtual programming, and focus on well-being with fitness and enhanced education programs. To do that, as written in the report, centers need to boost their image with better marketing and branding.
Rebranding may be an important first step to attract younger seasoned adults and some Pacific Northwest area centers have taken that step. The former Senior Center of West Seattle is now called The Center for Active Living. In Portland’s Hollywood neighborhood, the Hollywood Senior Center renamed itself The Community for Positive Aging.
In Southern California
Rebranding may be an important first step to attract younger seasoned adults and some California centers have taken that step. American Canyon renamed its Senior Multi-Use Center, the Adult Activity Center. And Vallejo and Palm Desert’s Joslyn Center have dropped the word “senior” from their name to project a more relevant and engaging image.
The Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks oversees 29 senior centers located throughout the LA metropolitan area and several call themselves activity, adult, or multi-purpose centers. Others have retained their senior label but offer an array of vibrant older adult programming such as ukelele classes and Chinese calligraphy, salsa, pickleball, acting, and conversational Spanish. The ONE Generation Senior Enrichment Center operates an adjacent childcare preschool program and, as its name implies, offers multigenerational activities and older adult programs that include movie screenings, trips to the local farmer’s market, and cooking demonstrations.
As some California centers have discovered, co-locating activities and classes geared to older adults in community centers that serve all ages is both cost effective and promotes intergenerational community. Partnerships are also key. Where I live the local university’s Bernard Osher Lifelong Learning Institute has teamed up with the community senior center to move a few courses off the campus to the center, a win-win for both programs.
By 2030 more than 20% of Californians will be 65+, with its older population increasing three times faster than the rest of the U.S. Their dynamic generations lead nuanced lives that are as rich and complex as other age groups. They want their community gathering spaces to reflect that and to play a role in disrupting negative stereotypes about aging.
In Washington
Washington centers have retained their senior label but offer an array of vibrant older adult programming. The Northshore Senior Center, which bills itself as one of the largest senior centers in the country, takes a holistic approach to its services offering a full calendar of exercise classes such as ballet and pickleball, and recreational opportunities to play in a band, perform theater or learn guitar or piano. West Seattle’s Center for Active Living offered an autumn line-up of unique courses on artificial intelligence, jam-making, and Ghostology 101.
Co-locating activities and classes geared to older adults in community centers that serve all ages is both cost effective and promotes intergenerational community. The Federal Way Community Center senior program advertises, “Whoever coined the term the ‘sunset years’ for retirement has clearly never met a modern senior. Many seniors now maintain busier schedules than when they were working full-time. And they’re having fun! We couldn’t agree more. The Federal Way Community Center offers a full senior program with water- and land-based fitness activities, classes, contests, dancing, day trips, and special events.”
In 2018, Bainbridge Island’s Senior Community Center embarked on an all-ages listening tour to shift its emphasis from what the center could do for its members to what older adults could do for the community. The result is an in-progress new building designed to meet multiple needs, including those of the island’s 50+ population.
Washington’s 65+ population increased by 63 percent in the last decade. The dynamic generations in that group lead nuanced lives that are as rich and complex as other age groups. They want their community gathering spaces to reflect that new reality. “We will not hold onto outdated concepts of aging,” declares Bainbridge Senior Community Center. “Instead, we will provide the information, tools, and support that older adults (50+) want and need in their quest for healthy and engaged living as they age.”
Ann Randall is a freelance writer, organizational consultant and independent traveler who loves venturing to out-of-the-way locales from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Retired from a career as a teacher and union organizer in public education, she now observes international elections, does volunteer work in India and writes regularly for 3rd Act, Northwest Travel & Life, West Sound Home & Garden, Fibre Focus and Dutch the Magazine.