Letter From Our Executive Director

Hi Everyone,

The upcoming months of May and June are very special milestones for our Agency, we are celebrating our 45th Anniversary. Our Agency was incorporated in May 1967 and began providing programs in June of that year. Our Agency was started due to the vision of some of the City of Joliet leaders who were involved in building a senior high rise building on Joliet Street. They saw a need for some entity to be there to provide programs for the seniors. Our Agency was the second senior center established in the State of Illinois with funding from the Federal Older Americans Act.

In the beginning we provided mainly social recreation and educational programs. We had a staff of one full time person and a part time person. Most of our recreational programs were provided by the Joliet Park District.

Over the years as the needs of the seniors changed, we began to take on more programs and services through State, Federal and local grants. These services include:

• Information and Assistance
• Social Recreation Activities
• Long Term Care Ombudsman
• Preventative Health Screening
• Medicare Fraud Program
• Elder Abuse and Neglect Investigation
• Joliet Computer Lab
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
• Family Caregiver Program
• Educational Opportunities
• Transportation
• Volunteer Opportunities

Case Coordination Unit Services — eligibility determination for in-home care, case manage-ment of those clients and nursing home placement prescreens.

In the mid to late 1990's we out grew the facility on Joliet Street. Our Nutrition Depart-ment was housed at the Will County Health Department and our Case Coordination Unit was at Marycrest Center. We wanted to consolidate into one location.

We moved into our facility on Center Street in December 1998. Unfortunately we are once again out of space and needed to rent additional offices for our Case Coordination Unit.

We have faced many challenges over our 45 years. Most of them revolving around funding. This year is no different. As you may be aware, the State of Illinois owes our Agency around $400,000. We can no longer afford to provide these services by drawing on a line of credit and we have seen a reduction in local government support, we receive no funding from the City of Joliet or Will County Government. In the next few months our Board of Directors will be making some hard choices to ensure that we are around for another 45 years.

Wish I had better news to share but this is the reality of trying to do business in the State of Illinois.

Sincerely,

Pat

Patricia Hensley