Staff writer
The All Goessel Area Projects for Elderly Center is hosting fundraisers organized by anonymous patrons 7 to 9:30 a.m. Sept. 24 and Oct. 1.
The fundraisers will benefit AGAPE in an effort to keep the center open.
“The board has spoken about closing the facility,” AGAPE secretary Glendene Schmidt said. “We’re short of money every month, $300 to $400 a month.”
Schmidt said the center serves lunch to approximately 20 patrons a day. That number is not high enough for the North-Central Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging to place a full-time cook at AGAPE. Currently, the center has drivers travel to Peabody to bring meals 25 miles. If the center could attract 10 more patrons, they could acquire the services of a full-time cook.
“We need more people,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt is hoping more people will come to the center as a social destination. There are already a number of pool players at the center and the center plans to establish more activities for women.
The center was also without a manager for sometime but they recently hired Goessel native Jenny Girard.
Schmidt said the center’s only sources of income are renting the building for events and holding fundraisers. Although patrons pay a suggested fee of $2.75 for meals, that money goes to the agency on aging.