St. Louis Activity Center

Metropolitan Senior Citizens Corporation, Inc./dba as the St. Louis Activity Center was founded in 1954. We are the second oldest Senior Center in the United States. We are one of a few "Full Service" Senior Centers in the City. Through creative programming we provide participants with resources in the areas of physical and mental health, nutrition, education and transportation to ensure the opportunity to experience an optimal quality of life and encourage "Aging in Place"

The Center's transportation program offers this vital service. They have already provided hundreds of free rides to and from important medical appointments and grocery stores. Most importantly, the program continues to run during the COVID-19 crisis, providing seniors with piece of mind during these difficult times. During these uncertain times, we must do everything we can to protect and support our seniors. Additional funding for this senior transportation program is so important now. Aging residents have enough to worry about during the coronavirus crisis. They should not have to worry about how to get around.

Transportation has become a lifeline for our seniors who are responding to COVID-19 social distancing requirements by avoiding public transportation. The Activity Center's Senior Ride Program ensures that older adults have affordable, accessible and reliable transportation services to their medical appointments. We look forward to the continuation and growth of this critical service. Seniors and people with pre-existing health conditions are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. it's important to stay home and shelter in-place, to reduce their risk.

Those who can no longer drive or have barriers to getting around to do the things they need and want to do face physical isolation, frustration, and feel dependent and trapped. This generates stress and undermines their ability to cope.
The COVIID-19 pandemic underscores the critical importance of the Activity Center's services to provide affordable, accessible and reliable transportation to St. Louis seniors. The Center's Senior Ride Program addressing risks of loneliness, social isolation, depression, cognitive decline and placement in an assisted living facility.
With the unprecedented challenges facing everyone, it is more important now than ever for Activity Center to continue contributing key roles of helping seniors access food and medication, and to make routine yet lifesaving trips to medical appointments.

St. Louis area seniors have major challenges. They have been urged to stay home because the risk of severe illness increases with age. These individuals often do not drive and many have limited financial resources. Yet, they still need food and medication, and they may need to make routine yet lifesaving trips to medical appointments. The Center provides home delivery of groceries, food pantry packages, meals, and prescription medications to older adults and at-risk individuals who shouldn't leave the safety of their homes.

The Center's Senior Ride Program is a vital lifeline for meeting the needs of assessing meals, groceries, medicine, and support services.
This crisis has amplified the need for the critical services these vital agencies provide to help older adults remain safely at home, now more than ever.

The Center's mission is to maximize the health, safety and independence of older adults so they can live at home and in the community as they age.. To that end, The Center provides a broad range of supportive services that include transportation, home-delivered meals, information and assistance.

As stay-at-home orders went into place across the St. Louis region, hundreds of seniors found themselves with a reduced ability to secure food and prescriptions and cut off from family, friends and neighbors who they depended upon for support and companionship. Without the intervention of the Activity Center and the service providers they partner with, many these older adults they already serve would have been left hungry, unassisted and socially isolated.