Funding creates contrasts for senior centers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City

The Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center hums from early morning to early evening most days with a program that includes dance classes, book groups, musical programs, financial advice, technology classes, and afternoon movies. In Cedar Rapids, activities at the Witwer Center usually wrap up by early afternoon.

"It is totally different here, of course,” said Myrt Bowers, director of the Witwer Center. “That's the big difference, they've got monetary support, we don't.”

While the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center receives just under $600,000 this year from the city toward its $868,302 operating budget, non-profit Witwer receives no regular public funding.

Witwer Center - “senior” has been officially dropped from its name - is seeing its budget of $1.1 million cut by more than half after turning over its federally funded senior meal program to Horizons, the Cedar Rapids family-service agency. The move, prompted by a reduction in federal funding, transferred 28 food-service employees and their $505,652 in salaries to Horizons, leaving Bowers Witwer's lone full-time employee.

Meals were served at Witwer Center's namesake building in downtown Cedar Rapids at 305 Second Ave. SE, where additional programs were also housed. Owned by Linn County, the building sustained damage in the June 2008 flood, and county supervisors voted to sell it to its current owners two years later.

Witwer's move to the Ecumenical Center, 303 Second Ave. SE, brought new costs.

"When we left the county building, we lost our support for maintenance, lights, utilities,” said Bowers. “It's been wonderful, but we don't have our 12,000 square feet we used to.”

A little more than 1,500 seniors participated in Witwer programs over the past six months, Bowers estimates.

The flood also claimed what could have been Witwer's recent best shot at expansion. The 15 in 5 initiative, conducted 2004 through 2007 by the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation and Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, identified a community center that would have included senior programs as a priority project. The proposal was forgotten in the flood's wake.

"The multigenerational, intergenerational center just isn't going to go, because of the funding,” said Bowers. “When you had the kind of (flood) devastation I can understand why the city can't do it.”

Another opportunity surfaced last November, when county supervisors approved $5,000 for a feasibility study of a senior-focused residential development on city-owned property in the New Bohemia neighborhood. The facility could include space for Witwer programs, but Bowers said concerns have arisen over the site.

"We're still in the real exploration phase,” she said. “We're going to go to the next step and meet again, so I'm a little encouraged.”

Witwer continues to coordinate a modest slate of activities - card games, dances, bingo, and the like - at public buildings in Cedar Rapids and other Linn County communities.

Meanwhile, the Iowa City center at 28 S. Linn St. boasts fitness rooms, and its spring catalog includes tai chi, Mandarin Chinese, and video production.

“After you retire, they're busier than when they were working, is what I hear all the time,” program specialist Michelle Buhman said one recent afternoon.

The center opened in 1981 as a joint city-county agency in the former Iowa City post office. Johnson County has since opted out of the joint arrangement, instead making an annual contribution toward the budget - $70,000 this year. The center remains a division of the city, the balance of its operating budget coming from a $450,000 endowment and from membership fees ($25 a year for city residents, $40 for those from elsewhere in the county, $60 for non-county residents).

There were 1,577 members at last count, Buhman said.

The center also holds a daily meal prepared by Elder Services Inc. but has no involvement beyond providing the site, said center coordinator Linda Kopping.

Committees of center members manage its operations and program offerings with a staff liaison.

"We like to have our members involved in the operations of the Senior Center, and not in a superficial way,” said Kopping. “The more ownership the participants have, the happier they're going to be.”

Kopping sees the center as a key component in Iowa City's popularity among retirees.

“The Senior Center provides services and resources that it's been documented keep people healthier and active in the community,” she said. “I really look at it as a preventive health care program, and I think we do a darn good job of it.”