Senior Services: Intergenerational Center for Arts & Wellness
Seniors, toddlers and PreK students, artists, health care professionals, and community volunteers—all will access and receive social services, under one roof, in a to-be constructed intergenerational community center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Reinvestment Fund financing is supporting the construction of Senior Services: Intergenerational Center for Arts & Wellness. The center will feature a thoughtful design and intentional co-location of various services for all generations of people throughout the community. The project is being built on the 10-acre site of Senior Services’ headquarters, repurposing the back parking lot to construct the new 62,000 square-foot facility. Senior Services, the project borrower, is a nonprofit agency with more than 60 years of experience helping older adults to live with dignity.
The facility will house Senior Services’ adult day care and allow it to expand from its current licensed capacity of 93 clients to approximately 140 clients. Most of the project will be dedicated to the co-location of various community partners, including Head Start, the Hispanic League, and Second Harvest Food Bank.
On April 27, 2022, the Intergenerational Center for Arts and Wellness broke ground.
This state-of-the-art center will bring various collaborating organizations under one roof to offer healthcare, intentional intergenerational interaction, and arts-based activities to Forsyth County’s older adults and the community at large.
The Center is due to open in October of 2023.
Interactions with youngsters and the arts will provide therapeutic benefits for Senior Services’ clients. In addition, health and wellness services will promote improved health outcomes and longevity. Community services and programming will make this a hub of activity, featuring a theater, teaching kitchen, recording studio, meeting spaces, multipurpose room, galleries, and computer lab.
Among the tenants:
- Senior Services’ adult day center will serve 250 persons with dementia annually.
- Family Services’ Head Start education, health, and nutrition programming will serve 105-150 toddlers and PreK students annually.
- HandsOn Northwest North Carolina offers volunteer training and mobilizes 5,000 volunteers for its network of 500 nonprofit organizations.
- Hispanic League connects the Forsyth Hispanic/Latino community to resources, services, and cultural programs.
- Novant Health will provide health care and a healthy living speaker series.
- Second Harvest Food Bank, another Reinvestment Fund borrower, will run a retail café.
- Winston-Salem State University’s School of Health Sciences, the local HBCU, will provide occupational and physical therapy, therapeutics, social work, and health care management services.
- Sawtooth School will host studio space and arts education programs.
- Atrium Health will operate a geriatric clinical and research center.
It was evident how innovative and impactful this project will be…They are looking at what is possible when you break down the silos and jointly provide services that haven’t been done well, or at all, before.
Bridget Wiedeman, Senior Director
The “Main Street” corridor will appear to be an outdoor streetscape. Inside, the facility will feature a central lobby, reception areas, administrative offices, exam rooms, nurse station, classrooms, occupational/physical therapy center, meeting rooms, music room, hair salon, spas, and other amenities.
Senior Services will master lease the project and sublease to the community partners, which will not pay rent, though some have committed to the project’s capital campaign. The agency also covers the costs of constructing the building and the tenant spaces. Senior Services has been successful in raising $27 million to date for this project.
The agency has drawn support from a range of sources, including individuals, corporations, foundations and governmental entities. The property is bordered on one side by one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Winston-Salem and on the other side by the historic Boston-Thurmond neighborhood, one of the city’s first residential neighborhoods built primarily for Black tobacco and textile workers.
After visiting the site, Senior Director, Bridget Wiedeman, stated, “It was evident how innovative and impactful this project will be. Senior Services brought in the high quality and thoughtfully curated providers that will co-locate with them, and the depth of the collaboration and the energy around this opportunity to interact in new ways was clear. Even organizations that typically compete in the health market are working together with a focus on benefitting the community and clients.” According to Wiedeman, what’s brought all these partners together is a shared focus on a bigger mission and goal to better serve the East Winston community. “They are looking at what is possible when you break down the silos and jointly provide services that haven’t been done well, or at all, before.”
The once flourishing Boston-Thurmond community experienced a decline in the 1960s along with the tobacco and textile industry. The community remains a predominantly African American neighborhood where almost one-fifth of its residents are seniors living alone. The center will be a welcomed addition to the community, bringing entertainment, services and day care to community members of all ages.