DOVER — Carolyn Fredricks and her staff at the Modern Maturity Center are ready to swing open its doors Monday and welcome back older adults, after being forced to close for almost two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The center, at 1121 Forrest Ave. in Dover, will reopen at 30% capacity, following state guidelines, and reservations will be required. There will be no walk-ins.

“We are so ready to get back to doing business for the older adults of Kent County and the Dover area,” said Ms. Fredricks, president and CEO of the MMC.

She added that interested individuals should call 734-1200 for lunch reservations and that there will initially be one seating each day at noon. She said those interested in making reservations for classes should dial 734-1200, ext. 167, and those wanting to reserve a spot in the fitness center or pool should call 734-1200, ext. 188.

The MMC has been forced to close a couple of times during the coronavirus outbreak. Hopefully, for its members, the most recent one will turn out to be the last.

“I have told our staff that unless the governor imposes a mandatory shutdown, we are not closing our doors anymore,” Ms. Fredricks said. “We are here to serve older adults, and that is what we have continued to do through this pandemic, providing Meals on Wheels, grab-and-go meals, food boxes, grocery shopping and even pet food, and now, we are going to resume on-site services. Reservations required, of course!”

The pandemic has been an especially difficult time for many seniors who live alone.

“I think what our members miss most is the socialization with their friends,” she said. “That is the most harmful thing about staying at home. The isolation leads to depression, which can, in turn, lead to other health issues. We are family here, and when we can’t spend time together, it is very lonely.”

Warren Center opens
Monday, too
The Mamie A. Warren Senior Center at 1775 Wheatleys Pond Road in Smyrna is also planning on reopening Monday 10 a.m.-noon, weather permitting.

Since closing its doors at the beginning of December due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Warren Senior Center has continued to offer grab-and-go meals. These meals will still be available by calling 653-4078 by 10 a.m., with pickup at 11. Meals on Wheels are also being delivered by the facility.

Other facilities’
reopening plans
In other parts of Kent County, some senior centers are either already open or planning to reopen.

The Harrington Senior Center is following others’ leads and intends to reopen Monday, also with 30% capacity.

In addition to the standard COVID-19 precautions, Karen Crouse, the center’s executive director, said it has other unique ways to allow its members, many of whom are widows or widowers who live alone, to socialize safely.

“If we have more than two people at a table for lunch or for special activities, we have sneeze guards that we put up between them, so when they have their masks down and eating, there’s protection between them,” she said.

On Monday, when the center will reopen via an appointment system, Ms. Crouse said only one activity will be missing.

“A lot of our card games will not start back up right away because it’s not easy to sanitize those cards,” she said. “It’s hard to keep those people 6 feet apart, and they don’t want to play with the sneeze guards and their masks all day long.”

To make an appointment, members can call the Harrington center at 398-4224.

Ms. Crouse said her center works closely with MMC to feed seniors in need. That’s why they are reopening on the same schedule.

“Modern Maturity Center does our Meals on Wheels in this area, so they operate out of our facility,” she said. “As far as I know, all of us that have Modern Maturity Center doing our congregant meals, meaning we’re going to serve lunch on the premises for people, (are) opening back up Feb. 1.”

The Milford Senior Center, which was closed March 13-Aug. 11, has been open at 30% capacity since then, except for the period outlined in Gov. John Carney’s holiday season stay-at-home order.

Executive Director Brenda Coppock said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines are being followed, including temperature screenings, additional hand-sanitizing stations throughout the building and a mandatory mask policy.

Still, Ms. Coppock said the facility is available by reservation only and that activities are limited to those that can be done 6 feet apart. To make a reservation, members can reach the Milford center at 422-3385.

The Frederica Senior Center, which serves a smaller community than its counterparts in other parts of the county, is only open from 7 a.m. until lunchtime three days a week.

According to information from its February 2021 newsletter, it has been offering meals via takeout only for some time. But “soon,” the letter said, dining in will be allowed.

Still, area seniors will have to reserve their seats by 9 a.m. on the day they plan to go into the center to eat. To make a reservation, call the center at 335-4555.

MMC also a testing site
The reopening is not the only good news that the MMC has had to offer recently.

Rapid COVID-19 testing is now available at MMC, Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in East Wing Ballroom 1. Individuals must have a reservation, but testing is free, and results only take about 15 minutes. Reservations can be made at eventbrite.com/e/modern-maturity-center-free-rapid-antigen-testing-for-covid-19-tickets-137192018019. The testing is made possible through a partnership with Curative, the Delaware Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard.

Also, staff and more than 300 MMC clientele were among the first in Delaware to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the Division of Public Health’s initial vaccination wave earlier this month.

The center was contacted by the DPH on Jan. 14, two days before the start of a three-day drive-thru vaccination clinic at the Division of Motor Vehicles in Dover.

Ms. Fredricks said the DPH asked all essential workers of the facility and volunteers from its Meals on Wheels program to attend the clinic.

Then, the following day, she received another call from DPH about its pilot program for vaccinations to individuals 65 and older. She was asked to send over 100 individuals each day of the DMV event.

Food distribution
All these centers have also been feeding people in need throughout the pandemic.

“Since March, we have served over 20,000 meals (and) handed out numerous bags of food and personal hygiene items,” the Frederica newsletter reported.

The centers in Milford and Harrington have also played an integral role in feeding seniors in need throughout the pandemic by preparing and often delivering meals and groceries to those in need.

The pandemic has been hard on seniors across the world, and that’s no different in Delaware.

“We are their stability in life. They come here every single day,” Ms. Coppock said of many of her members who come in regularly.

“It was a shock for all of us,” she said, to have this important social outlet ripped away.

Still, Ms. Coppock said many seniors are skeptical about returning to a communal setting like a senior center with the pandemic raging. She said her registration rolls have dropped from over 1,000 before COVID-19 to about 400 today.

Vaccines coming soon?
Ms. Fredricks said work is currently taking place to try to get the MMC to be a COVID-19 vaccination site soon.

“We still don’t have anything definite about providing the vaccine on-site; however, we have been working to send all the A1 staff and older adults over 65 to the larger vaccination events,” she said. “We are very anxious and extremely willing to become a vaccination site and have been working to try to make that possible.”