Oshawa Senior Citizens Centre celebrates its 50th year
OSHAWA — Members of the Oshawa Senior Citizens Centre celebrated the organization's 50th year with dinner and entertainment on May 3.
The event sold out, with more than 400 tickets sold. Seniors, staff, volunteers and government officials were all in attendance at the Sikorski Hall.
The OSCC’s first branch opened in 1968. The John street branch came about when it was recognized Oshawa needed a senior’s centre. It was originally meant as just a drop-in facility.
After that came the Northview branch, the Conant branch and then the Legends Centre branch.
The event started with a cocktail hour, then music, speeches and dinner. Colin Carrie, Jennifer French, OSCC’s board president Sylvia Rhoades and Mayor John Henry spoke, along with OSCC’s executive director, Sandy Black.
Black said the event was a nice celebration for the history of the OSCC. She was happy to see everyone come together to appreciate the work of everyone involved.
“We wanted to commemorate the branches, like our tag line says, ‘honouring the past, celebrating the future,’” said Black.
She said the dance floor was full and she was glad to stand back to see the attendees, seniors and volunteers arm-in-arm, having a nice night.
“We say, strangers become friends and friends become family, and that’s what we saw tonight,” Black said.
She’s looking forward to the future as the OSCC expands. Black recently found out that a fifth branch will be funded.
The new branch will temporarily be running out of the General Sikorski Hall in the lower level. The branch will move when a new recreational facility is built in the new quadrant of the city.
She said a jump in the population has led seniors to start surpassing children, increasing the need for seniors centres.
According to Statistics Canada, as of July 1, 2017, there were 5.9 million children under the age of 14 and 6.2 million people over the age of 65.
Black said, “We will be celebrating a lot more seniors in the years to come.”
Originally published in Durham’s Metroland newspapers/durhamregion.com on May 8, 2018.