I recently joined around 500 Seniors and Senior Affairs at their monthly “Seniors at the movies” event a week ago at the Newport Mall Theatre! There I got to meet Joan Eccleston the administrator for Senior Affairs to Jersey City to get the background story on all the amazing work that they do. I also was able to sneak into one of the Theatre’s and watch a film with my new friends!

First here are some facts about Seniors living in Jersey City:

• There are over 30,000 seniors living in Jersey City
• Jersey City HHS operates 2 full day senior centers and 9 congregate lunch sites
• There are approximately 20 sites of senior housing in Jersey City
• They deal with approximately 65 senior groups.

Senior Affairs is in charge of giving information and assistance to seniors with regard to housing and other services they may need.  They also provide group transportation to all senior groups.  They are beginning an Aging in Place program, working with Habitat for Humanity which will make small improvements to seniors homes that will allow them to live there safely rather than go to nursing homes.  These may include, handicapped ramp, widening doorways, put a flashing light on doorbells, etc.

They operate 2 full day senior centers, one in the Heights and one on Bergen Avenue that are open from 9-4:30 every day with a hot lunch, dance and other activities.  They also provide health education through HHS and connect them with speakers on other topics, such as Elder Law, Senior Fraud, and Emergency Preparedness.  Senior Nutrition provides home delivered Meals on Wheels to over 800 seniors.  One of the highlights at the center is Gospel line dancing at the centers on Wednesdays.

What’s your name? Joan Eccleston.

What do you do? I’m the administrator of Senior Affairs to Jersey City.

Can you tell me a little bit more about Senior Affairs? Well, first of all, I’ve been doing it for twenty years; me and my husband have been doing it for thirty years. We take care of all of the activities—I think there are about 25,000 Jersey City seniors—we do transportation, information assistance, events, farmers markets vouchers, a little bit of everything.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the events? Well, today we have the first-rate senior movies, the first Tuesday of every month for about 500 people. We just moved back to Newport where they have the big reclining seats and they get the choice of four movies. This month the Mayor’s having a Christmas concert at the Loews so we’re trying to promote that.

How many seniors are we expecting today? We expect about 500 seniors; we have five Jersey City buses that take them. Some of the seniors come on their own [but] they’re not thrilled there’s no free parking, but they love it and they have to be first rate movies. This is great because it’s a good opportunity for the city to reach the seniors that aren’t involved with the city housing and things like that.

So they can choose what movie they want to watch. Yes.

We also run two big seniors centers, one in the Heights and one in Greenville on Bergen and Ege.

What goes on there? A little bit of everything, they’re open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, they have lunch every day, but they have bingo to cards, they have line dancing on Wednesdays and each center has their own activities. Some like to play pool, some like to play cards, some like to sit and watch TV and it’s just all the comradery because it’s just the only way that seniors get interactions with some of them.

How did you get into it? I was in the mayor office in ’95 and I was helping the Mayor with seniors and he said, “I want you to take over for seniors,” so I did. This guy, Larry Eccleston there who’s the director there, I said, “What about Larry?” he said, “Hopefully he quits, if not he reports to you,” and we’ve been married for sixteen years.

Oh, I love it! That’s so cute! So between us we’ve been doing seniors for fifty years.

Wow and what do you like about it? I love it because you’re just so appreciative because sometimes kids they don’t appreciate what’s going on [and] some of the seniors are just so grateful for everything and I love seeing how well they do when they get older. The older the better, we’ve been through a lot of 100 and 104-year-old birthdays and everything.

Oh wow, I love that, that’s awesome and also it gets them to interact with other people, have a little fun, get them out of the house. Yes. We also do farmers markets, we’ll do the pocket count pretty soon, we have the directories, but the seniors, some of them just want to talk. Sometimes you’ll just have to listen to them talk when they call for one question, but they’ll have you on the phone for about a half hour.

Where do you guys get your funding? Well, Senior Affairs, this is all city funding, but there is also a Senior Nutrition program where they get all the county and federal funding they do the nine congregate lunch sites and they also have about 800 meals on wheels, so that’s all federally funded, but that’s another office within the city.

Do you guys have volunteers? We don’t really do volunteers we have a good enough staff, but we also deal with—the volunteers per say we have about sixty-five group leaders whether they’re church groups, housing, senior centers, block associations, and they’re a conduit because it’s easy to get in touch with people who live in housing that’s why this is always more involved too.

Do you live in Jersey City? Yes, I’ve lived in Jersey City since ’85 and started working for the city in ’92.

Do you have a favorite Jersey City hangout spot? Liberty House. We were there at the very opening. We Uber over there and just sit out there and relax, it’s like you’re on a mini-vacation.

How do seniors contact you to get involved? Well, what they can do is—the main number for Senior Affairs is (201) 547- 5750 or my number is (201) 547-4992—on my number we also leave the movies the week before the seniors have to know the Wednesday before.

http://www.jerseycitynj.gov/hhs

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