Laconia Senior Center aims for grant to expand kitchen, services

LACONIA — The Laconia Senior Center hopes to partner with the city for a grant to expand the kitchen at their location on Beacon Street in order to offer daily meal service. 

At their regular meeting on May 28, city council approved a request by the Community Action Program for Belknap-Merrimack Counties for the city to act as the primary applicant for the senior center to receive Community Development Block Grant planning funds, which would set in motion a process to explore the renovation and expansion of the kitchen and a community programming space.

The expansion would allow CAP to provide daily congregate meals and also expand opportunities for community programming. 

Following the approval, the request is still subject to a public hearing at a later date.

Upgrades and renovations would be made to the area adjacent to the existing kitchen at the Laconia Senior Center and would allow CAP to expand community opportunities there. 

Heather Joubert, CAP program manager for Laconia and Franklin, said the project could provide a huge benefit to the center's operations and benefit area seniors by reducing social isolation, which became a particularly impactful issue following the COVID pandemic. Congregate meals allow seniors a chance to combat loneliness by meeting new people, and the boost to the Meals on Wheels program — which already serves about 270 people a day or 1,000 per month — will make an effect.

“It’s such an important thing,” Joubert said, noting there are numerous people among the population they serve who have no way of getting groceries and rely on the senior center for many of their meals.

“We’ll be able to feed people in-house five days a week,” Joubert said.

The renovations would also make way for expanded services. Joubert noted they’ve looked into providing education on nutrition and other topics through the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, which could include the introduction of cooking classes. 

The application is for a $25,000 CDBG award through the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority to support the pre-development process for the project. Pre-construction planning, architectural design and fundraising planning costs would be provided for by the grant.

If the request is passed following a public hearing, the city would hire a grant writer who would then prepare and submit the application to NH CDFA on behalf of CAP. The grant writer’s fees would be covered by the award at no additional cost to the city. 

Consultant Karen Prior, former executive director of the Belknap Mill, is contracted by CAP to help guide the organization through the initial grant application and to help with future fundraising.

The pre-planning phase would include gathering architecture designs and plans for engineering and construction that would be necessary to include in a later grant application. It’s too early in the process to suggest a price tag or definitive timeline for the project.

“We are crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s,” Prior said in an interview.

To receive the pre-planning award would suggest good favor moving forward with the project, which Prior said she hopes may be fully funded through the grant program. By providing funds for the pre-development phase, NH CDFA can be sure CAP is doing all of their due diligence. 

“We’re making sure the project is set up for success,” Prior explained. “This is the planning stage.”

Once the grant application is submitted, NH CDFA will review it on a rolling basis. The earliest Prior said she might expect a decision on the initial $25,000 award would be late summer.

“My No. 1 goal is to really understand the scope of the project,” she said. 

The expansion of the kitchen facilities would be of massive importance to CAP, which served over 5,379 meals to 294 individuals between the congregate and meal delivery programs in May alone. 

“The senior centers are super vital to the communities,” Heather O’Brien, director of elder services at CAP said in an interview. “We provide nutrition by serving the meal — the grant would allow us to serve meals five days a week. Right now the meals come out of here, in our kitchen in Concord. We would be able to produce more meals up there in Laconia by having a more commercialized kitchen.”

Senior centers provide nutritious meals along with an opportunity for the elderly to meet, therefore reducing the strain of social isolation, and coordinate recreational activities including exercise, which attracts about 20 people every week, and Bingo. Bingo has proven especially popular in Laconia. 

But cooking the meals onsite in Laconia would make it possible for the senior center to provide better quality meals and potentially source produce and other items from local vendors and farmers. It would also reduce overall costs to CAP and allow for hiring additional kitchen staff to meet the demands of the expanded program.

“We’ve wanted this kitchen since we moved,” she said. “It’s going to make a huge impact on the community and the city of Laconia is just growing — it’s only going to enhance that.”

Director of Strategic Planning Beth Heyward said CAP’s reach is vast and providing extended services for seniors in the Lakes Region will be facilitated by the project.

“It’s not just a Laconia project, which is one thing we really want people to understand,” Heyward said. “Even though it’s in Laconia, it really, truly is going to impact the greater Laconia area, the Lakes Region area.

"You don’t have to live in Laconia to come to the center.”

The expansion could help CAP's community services center bring a greater impact to the region, O’Brien noted. The senior center is just one of the affiliated services located downtown, and its growth may entice seniors and others from around the region to come to Laconia to gain access to services.

“Our area center is right next door, so by our senior center growing, we’re going to bring more people into our area center,” O’Brien said. “The food pantry, fuel and electrical assistance — even from there we can connect them to other CAP resources.”

CAP is working to pull together a steering committee, made up of people with varying expertise, which will begin the process of pre- and long-term planning and work to organize fundraising efforts to facilitate the wider project.

If and when the project comes to fruition, CAP will potentially be able to double the number of meals provided through the congregate and delivery programs throughout Alton, Tilton, Franklin and Laconia to around 10,000 each month. And fuel and electricity assistance provided by the resource centers would be greatly benefited, too. In fiscal year 2022-23, residents of Laconia received over $800,000 in fuel assistance and $300,000 in electrical assistance alone.

“We’ll be able to double our numbers,” O’Brien said. “The impact that we could have is huge.”