Sunday, March 16, 2025
AZLE — The Azle Senior Center celebrated a community open house Jan. 24. The event offered gifts, goodies and a chance to see all the facility has to offer.
Jackie “JJ” Joy, the facility’s director, was excited to speak about the various activities she had in store for the future. Joy said she’d recently picked up three new vendors to call bingo games, also providing the blockout prizes along with cake and ice cream for birthday parties. Joy said the center is excited to host “blingo” in February, where vendors will provide shiny, flashy, blingy prizes and music and host music bingo on the first Wednesday of the month with Joyce Spikes.
“She gives us special cards that have names of songs, and then she plays a song, and if it's on your card, you mark it off,” Joy said. “I've been calling bingo a lot. I like being in there because it gives me a chance to be with my people. But it's nice when we get these vendors involved.”
Joy said prospective visitors to the center should be on the lookout for its February calendar, which will be dropping on its website soon. The center will hold exercise classes with Amanda Scott Wednesday mornings. On Feb. 20, the center will be serving guests muffins and coffee and an opportunity to socialize. On Feb. 17, the center will feature a “Mindful Monday” rock painting class.
“We’re going to do some rock painting, because it's random acts of kindness the week before. So we're going to do that, and then we can give our rocks to people to show that we appreciate them … The Thursday or Friday before the Super Bowl we're going to do something special. We haven't got it all planned out yet, but we're going to be doing that and people are going to get everybody to vote for who they want to win.”
Joy hopes the center can also soon start a crochet club. Among the year’s other developments are an increase, to $2.50, in the recommended donation price for the center’s daily meals. The money goes to Meals on Wheels to help offset the full cost of the food. Joy said this is the first time the center has had to increase prices in the almost nine years she has worked there.
Healthcare service providers and local business used the event as an opportunity to meet with the public. Scott demonstrated exercises with attendees and handed out raffled prizes. Attendees also gathered for a game of bridge in one of the center’s back rooms, while others demonstrated their artistry in the facility’s craft rooms. One Azle Senior Center regular, Earlene Gardner, collected signatures from each person coming in for a quilt project while local artist Penny Conn worked on painting a large tablecloth banner for the center.
“I try to come up with useful things to help make life easier,” Gardner said of her crafts. “Everything we use in here, we donate it and those will migrate. I bought supplementals because I needed it but we have people donate material and stuff, and we use it.”
