| Café-Wellness
Center Hybrid Expands To Senior Centers and Beyond CHICAGO – Saying
it can help senior centers
attract younger, more active members, a group that
has pioneered a combination Internet-wired coffee
shop and wellness center is taking its concept into
two senior centers in 2005.
Mather LifeWays has developed four such “cafés”
since 2000, including Norwood, a facility on
the Northwest Side that feels like an embellished
Starbucks, with warm colors, contemporary furnishings
and class room space. Open to all ages, it offers
an affordable, day-long menu with a strong focus
on customer choice.
The café also provides bar-coded membership
cards that track what people eat and the programs
they attend and enable staff to call those who have
not participated in a while. Cardholders pay $42 per
year or $80 for any two people and receive a 20
percent discount on classes and food.
Soon, this approach will be adopted by the Des
Plaines Senior Center, which will make Mather
LifeWays its congregate meal provider when the
center relocates to a strip mall it is redeveloping
Setting Affordable Prices About 40 older people who are
being grandfathered
will be asked to donate $3.50 for the lunch
item of their choosing, while other senior center
patrons will pay a little over $5. A joint fundraising
program will provide additional revenue and allow
the program to expand.
Mather LifeWays is also about to sign a contract
with the Arlington Heights (Ill.) senior center
for a similar service. In fact, the Mather group receives
calls about the café model from around the
country and as far away as Japan.
Inquiries come from senior centers with declining
memberships and unpopular meals programs,
according to Program Replication Manager Stacey
Foisy. “They know change is in the air and that they
need to bring in new patrons,” she told OAR, “but
where do they begin and where is the capital to
make these changes?”
Senior centers are not the only places that are
looking at the Mather model. In San Francisco, the
Mission Housing Development Corporation will put
a Mather café in a 100-unit apartment building for
active seniors being constructed next to a building
for frail elders. The café will be available to residents
of both buildings.
“It’s not just about the paint, how it looks or
what meals you serve,” Foisy said. “It’s about
choice and choice brings empowerment. The day of
[older people] poking their fork in a plastic container
is gone. Make your older customers empowered
like adults.”
Contact: Stacey Foisy, Mather LifeWays,
(847) 492-6774, www.matherlifeways.com; Ken
Jones, Mission Housing, (415) 864-6432; Sharon
Smith, Des Plaines Community Senior Center,
(847) 391-5717, www.dpcsc.org.
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