While it is important every day to recognize seniors and the contributions they have given and continue to offer the community of Langley, there won’t be a lot of special activities planned locally for the National Seniors Day 2024.
This from Kate Ludlam, executive director of the Langley Senior Resource Society (LSRS), when explaining that much of the efforts by staff and volunteers at Langley’s seniors centre of late have been focused on expanding programs, establishing working relationships with community partners, and stepping into a new but critical seniors advocacy role.
On Oct. 1, the centre has invited the Langley Seniors in Action to be present, and special seniors day acknowledgement will be made at lunch, Ludlam noted.
But having recently hired two key staff and focusing on a new five-year strategic plan that came out of a member survey done last year, she said much of the team’s energies are focused on expanding its services for Langley’s growing demographic of seniors.
“I think that we’re all probably recognizing that the senior population is growing very quickly… putting a lot of pressure on all sorts of systems,” Ludlam said.
For LSRS, as a social service organization with almost 1,000 members, they want to continue providing their popular social options, as well as their educational and health-related programming. But they’ve received a clear mandate that its members need them to also distinguish themselves as a local seniors advocate – working on their behalf on issues such as health care, transportation, housing, and food securities.
Ludlam pointed to the recent HandyDART strike as an example, explaining the “detrimental impact” it had on some of the centre’s 48 adult daycare program clients who couldn’t access care.
Seeing the “significant deterioration” that occurred for some of their most vulnerable clients in just the few weeks of the strike, she said the society, working with some of its partners, will now be lobbying to have HandyDART designated as an essential service.
“We need to let the powers that be know what the impact is,” she said, citing it as just one example of needed leadership and advocacy.
