Gold Plate holding off on reopening; will reassess after Labor Day
Gold Plate in Du Quoin is already the only senior meal site in southern Illinois that has not reopened to in-person visits, and now the board has said it wants to wait and reassess the situation after Labor Day.
"Because of the rising number of COVID cases again, their board requested to delay (reopening) until September," Becky Salazar, executive director of the Egyptian Area Agency on Aging, said Thursday.
Salazar has no objection to Gold Plate's reluctance to reopen and said that in fact, at other senior sites clients have been slow to return for in-person meals and social events.
"A lot of places are reporting that people aren't coming in as much - they still prefer to have their meals delivered or they come in and pick them up," Salazar said.
"It's kind of sad, when you think how long they waited to reopen," she added.
Salazar said none of the senior sites that come under her umbrella are talking about closing back up again. She's relieved about that because seniors need more than just the nutrition, they also require the society that comes with frequenting local senior centers, she said.
Moreover, the sites offer an array of social services to in-person visitors - important in southern Illinois where many seniors are not computer savvy.
Salazar said volunteers have been writing letters and cards and send them out with the delivered meals, to give seniors some personal contact.
Most senior sites in southern Illinois reopened July 1. Gold Plate and Franklin County were the holdouts, but Franklin County needed to fix a roof. That site has since opened, Salazar said.
She said the Gold Plate board is expected to reassess the situation near the end of August, and will determine whether to open in September or hold off.
Meanwhile, Gold Plate has expanded its delivery of hot meals from one a week to two a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Clients who get delivered meals get hot meals on those two days, and three frozen meals on Mondays to cover them for the whole week.
Executive Director Tammy Asbury said a few weeks ago that their goal is to eventually be able to deliver hot meals all five weekdays.
The Illinois Department of Aging, which disburses the money to the local meal programs, has given wide latitude to individual senior centers on when they can reopen sites to the general public. Sites in more populous northern Illinois have said it will be at least October before they fully reopen.