Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

Lois E. Harrill Senior Center Recertified As a Center of Excellence

Story by Corinne Saunders

About 70 senior citizens pass through the doorway of the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center each day, whether to use the fitness room, take an art class, enjoy a meal or play bingo. Those seniors are enjoying an excellent center—literally.

After an onsite inspection in mid-February, the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center was certified a Center of Excellence for the third time. Each certification lasts three years; this one is valid until February 28, 2011. In addition to its acknowledgement of excellent programming, the certification has a monetary aspect as well. Centers of Excellence receive three times the funding that uncertified centers receive; this year, the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center received $21,872.

The extensive qualifications for being named a Center of Excellence include a variety of programs, outreach activities and collaborations with other agencies: specifically, offering services to seniors that include signing up for Social Security and Medicare benefits, screening and application for respite or in-home services, and health screenings.

Sherry Harmon, director of the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center and its only staff member, accomplishes this and more with her dedication to the county’s elderly population.

The center relies on interns and volunteers, in addition to Project on Aging staff members. “ASU helps enormously [by providing] interns and volunteers,” Harmon said. “The seniors themselves volunteer to serve meals, and some instructors are volunteers.”

Harmon graduated with a sociology degree from ASU, and internships she completed while in school helped tailor her work focus according to her passion.
“One reason I feel so strongly about internships is that I did two: one with Probations and Parole and one with the Department of Social Services,” she said. “The population I enjoyed working with the most was older adults. When I got out of school, I had the opportunity to work with the Project on Aging in 1976 and I’ve been here ever since.”

She puts ASU interns to work in the center, whether their majors are in sociology, health promotions or anything in between.

“There are very few departments at ASU [with which] I can’t develop meaningful internships here,” Harmon said. She once partnered with a persuasion class in the Communication Department for advocacy training workshops and now uses the PowerPoint presentation the students created to promote the center in the community, she added.

The Project on Aging was a small agency when Harmon became involved with it, first as an in-home aid and then through VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America)—“a domestic version of the Peace Corps,” she said.

Harmon was hired as the director of the Watauga County Senior Center in 1978, and until fall 1997, the center was housed in the county-owned building that was formerly the A&P, she said.

“After Lois Harrill [the founder and first director of the Project on Aging] was killed in a car accident in 1979, the center was renamed,” Harmon said, adding that it has been in its present location for 11 years.

Harmon is a county employee, and the county owns the building and handles its maintenance, she said. “We’re very fortunate here in this county to get so much support from the county,” Harmon said. “We definitely could not be the agency we are without the support we receive. I’ve seen other counties that aren’t so lucky.”

Harmon uses the money the center receives from its Center of Excellence status for contracted teachers for nutrition and art and crafts classes, as well as the purchase of computers, furniture and other items “that enhance the quality of the program,” Harmon said, adding that she recently purchased a karaoke machine for the center.

Adults ages 60 and older can come to the center and take a variety of classes. Volunteers teach weaving and one-on-one computer classes, so these are free for participants and seniors only need to provide their own materials for beginning or intermediate art, nutrition and health or craft classes. Beginning and intermediate tai chi, yoga, needlework and sewing are self-supporting classes; the amount charged covers the instructors’ pay, Harmon said.

Some of the paintings and drawings produced as a result of the center’s art classes decorate the walls there, but others are displayed elsewhere throughout Boone.

“The Watauga Arts Council allows us to have a Senior Art Gallery in the Jones House, as well as art placement in businesses around the community,” Harmon said.

In addition to the variety of classes, the center provides many exercise opportunities, offerings that have grown exponentially under Harmon’s direction.
“When I first started, the men wanted to sit around and talk, maybe play cards, and the women just wanted to do crafts,” Harmon said. “We do surveys all the time; programs are consumer-driven. There used to be one exercise class a week, and I used to have to beg and plead for people to come in.”

Now exercise opportunities are increasingly in demand, she said. In addition to yoga, tai chi and a walking program, the center offers one exercise class of some kind each day Monday through Friday plus a Body Recall class twice a week.
Harmon has lined up numerous programs for those who want to use the center. Certain programs have a residency requirement, such as the comprehensive health screenings that are offered monthly at both the Harrill center and the Western Watauga Community Center, Harmon said.

Other programs, such as lunch served Monday through Friday at noon at both centers, are open to both residents and nonresidents.

The center also offers popular monthly field trips that can be out-of-town shopping excursions, trips to local attractions or summer picnics. “We have a full bus with a waiting list of 15 people between the two centers,” Harmon said of an upcoming Johnson City shopping trip.

Two of the center’s regularly used services are income tax assistance, sponsored by the AARP and provided by volunteers trained by the IRS, and the Seniors Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP) that offers assistance with applying for Medicare.

The Project on Aging serves as the umbrella agency for the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center and the Western Watauga Community Center in Sugar Grove.
A future goal is for the other center to be certified as a Center of Excellence, Harmon said.

For more information about the Project on Aging or the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center, call 828-265-8090.

Want To See the Seniors’ Artwork Around Town?

The first-ever Art Safari will take place on Friday, April 25, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., giving community members the opportunity to view the artwork of local seniors at three different locations. The Jones House, Lois E. Harrill Senior Center and Western Watauga Community and Senior Center are the stops on the safari, and light refreshments will be served at all the locations. Mixed media painting, hand-built pottery, handmade jewelry, old-fashioned rug hooking, spinning, weaving and quilts made by artists age 60 and over will be on display; demonstrations will be available at some locations. For more info, call 828-265-8090.