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By LOU HATTER
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The area’s senior citizens continue to see an increase in the number and variety of assistance and programs available to them, thanks to a partnership between the Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board and the county Department of Social Services.
According to CSC Director Sallie Morgan, there are 18,199 persons over 60 years of age in the five counties of Planning District 9. Those counties, Rappahannock, Madison, Orange, Culpeper and Fauquier, are the same counties served by the Community Services Center.
Of that number, 1,200 live in Rappahannock County, representing nearly 20 percent of the county’s 6,200 population, according to Mrs. Morgan. That, she noted, is well above the national average of 12 percent of the population over 60 years.
The Community Services Center is one of 21 regional boards across the state, and are part of the Virginia Department for the Aging. They are charged with administering a wide range of services for older Virginians. “Our job is to see that the needs of our residents over 60 years of age are met,” Mrs. Morgan explained. “We serve that whole population — we do the best we can to provide services which will allow them to remain in their own home.”
That focus, to provide assistance where necessary to allow seniors to continue to live independently rather than enter a nursing home or other facility, is the chief mission of CSC. “The majority of our services are focused on those most at risk of being removed from the community to an institutionalized setting.”
Those services can range from home visits by peers from the Retired Senior Volunteers Program, who make informal visits to check and make sure the resident is well, to the three times weekly meal offered at the Senior Nutrition Site, to financial assistance for certain services to those with limited income.
The Senior Nutrition Site is but one example of the focus of the programs. It allows seniors, who often live along and suffer from loneliness and depression, a chance to get out an visit with their friends — and at the same time have a nutritious, hot meal. In the elderly who live alone, nutrition is often neglected, Mrs. Morgan said, and if it can be sustained, other health problems are sometimes avoided. And, she added, the human contact provides them with “socialization” which is often as important as the hot meal.
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