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Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia has chosen to keep looking for a location to serve the older adults of Windsor and the surrounding area, opting not to go with the Windsor Town Center given some of the scheduling and logistical limitations involved.

Windsor Town Manager William Saunders provided the background on this matter during the Windsor Town Council’s meeting Tuesday, Sept. 13.

“At the Aug. 9 meeting of the Windsor Town Council, the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia proposal to provide senior programs at the Windsor Town Center was approved,” he said. “Following council’s approval, town staff met with Mr. (Steve) Zollos, (CEO) of the SSSEVA, to discuss the MOU’s parameters.”

Zollos submitted a statement to an affiliate of The Tidewater News, conveying Senior Services’ decision on the proposed contract.

“Senior Services is thankful to the Windsor Town Council for their ongoing support of the older adults and their support of the wide variety of programs and services provided by Senior Services,” he stated. “We are also grateful for their hard work in developing a proposed contract to house a program for older adults at Windsor Town Center.

“After a careful review of the proposed contract, and due to the need to close the program for an extended time each year, as well as the concern of school-time traffic at that location, we have decided to look for another location that will better serve the older adults of Windsor and the surrounding area,” he stated. “We greatly appreciate the Windsor Town Council and all of Isle of Wight County.”

Saunders noted to the Town Council that the reasons given by Zollos for declining the proposed agreement were the conflicts with the current use of the center by Isle of Wight County Schools and the Parks and Recreation Department.

During a Town Council meeting in March, Zollos shared some concerns he had about scheduling, though he still held out hope then that they could be alleviated.

“We’re doing a year-round program that provides lunch, it provides social programs, it provides education, like chronic disease self-management, diabetes management, matter of balance and a host of important programs for older adults to live healthy and active lives,” he said. “This becomes a social network for these folks. They start to not only come for socialization but for their meals and other support services.”

He said that giving up eight successive weeks of town center usage to allow for the Parks and Recreation summer camp is a big deal for SSSEVA.

At the council’s Sept. 13 meeting, Mayor Willis was the lone elected town official to provide comment in response to Senior Services’ decision.

“Disappointed that their decision went that way, and we will have to continue to keep them in mind and listen out, and maybe there’ll be an opportunity as they start refiguring what they might be able to do as an alternative, and we still might be able to work something out there on that, so we’ll see,” he said.