Prineville senior center to apply for grant

The Prineville Soroptimist Senior Center is applying for a grant to help fix up their aging building.

The building was first a bowling alley built back in 1965, before it was converted into the senior center in 1979 and now the floor, roof and parking lot are needing to be fixed up as they are not safe in their current state.

Board member Melody Kendall said Tuesday this is a place that does so much for the community that the grant would be huge in making sure it sticks around.

“We did, last fiscal year, we served over 31,000 meals, in a small little community,” Kendall said. “We do about 70 home-delivered meals a day.”

The nearly $1 million grant would get the needed repairs done to the building.

This is the second time that the senior center has tried for this grant, with the help of the city of Prineville.

Phil Stenbeck, the Prineville planning director said that the city has been working with the senior center and NeighborImpact on this grant.

“Right now the city of Prineville is leaning towards working with neighbor impact on acquiring that grant to do that activity,” Stenbeck said.

NeighborImpact was approached by the city and the senior center to help them write this grant because of their experience with this type of process.

Andrew Spreadborough with NeighborImpact is heading up the grant and he said Tuesday that in Prineville and Crook County it is extremely important to have resources available such as the senior center to help the community.

“About a quarter of Crook County’s residents are over the age of 65, so it’s important to have facilities and amenities to provided services to this population,” Spreadborough said. “We just see that the senior center is the main point of access for meals for seniors, and it needs to be safe, it needs to be accessible.”

The Prineville City Council will have until the end of December to apply for this grant.