Broken Arrow Senior Center Grows To Meet Community Demand

The City of Broken Arrow is committed to growing its senior program. It recently built a new senior center and purchased a new van to transport seniors to and from the new center.

Seniors make up about a quarter of Broken Arrow's population, so the city wants to ensure they remain connected to Broken Arrow.

Two years ago, the senior program had 1,200 members and only 56 activities a week. However, after the new senior center opened through a GO bond vote, those numbers jumped to over 3,100 members and around 113 classes and activities a week. 

"We cannot do this without the city's support and with them providing us a new bus so we could reach out to more of our seniors that are underserved and making sure they have access to the community, access to a hot meal, access to people and engagement and enrichment in their lives," said Kimberly Crenshaw, executive director of the Broken Arrow Senior Center. "They are also paving the way for having a spot for when they get older as well."

Crenshaw also said the BA senior center program also brings in seniors from other cities like Bixby and Owasso which is one reason why the program is continuing to grow.

With a growing senior population, Crenshaw said she wants to make sure they stay connected to the community.

"We are currently looking at expanding our hours so we can have that programming in the services and access to our working seniors because we are finding that seniors are working longer and longer and not retiring as early as they used to," Crenshaw said.