The popular “Day Center” project for low-mobility seniors, one of the flagship programs of the Chesed Menachem Charitable Foundation, has resumed operations after a five-year hiatus that began back in the pandemic.
Now the “Day Center” is looking for a new format for its work – where and how the meetings will be held, because the premises of Hesed for people with limited mobility cannot be used in case of the need for evacuation. Temporarily, one of the rooms in the Menorah Center Gallery is being used for the Day Center’s classes, and the new aisle of the Golden Rose Synagogue is being used for meals.
“I want to express my great gratitude to Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky, his son Reuven Kaminetsky and Svetlana Ermakova, director of the Menorah Center,” Victoria Novoselova, acting director of Chesed Menachem, told our website, “they supported our initiative and offered various options for restarting the program. We are still trying it out, but we can already see how much our clients miss this program and how much it is in demand.
Fifteen people were invited to the first meeting in the Day Center program and twenty people were invited to the next meeting, which will be held on Thursday. So far, two meetings per week are planned, but their frequency may be increased and will depend on the final location of the program and the results of the analysis of the first weeks of work.
“The Day Center program can only work “live”, it cannot be transferred to an online format,” explains Victoria Opalenko, head of the socialization programs block of Chesed Menachem, which includes the Freilachs Club, We have wanted to restore the “Day Center” for a long time, and we have long been asked to do so by our mentees, who miss communication, classes, joint creativity, and who can only partially notice the online projects. Now the Day Center is managed by Tatiana Pritykina, but if the project works as we want it to, of course, we will need to decide on a permanent program manager.
