The group gathered in the main room of the Hilo Adult Day Center on Saturday afternoon was small — no more than 25 people. It wasn’t immediately obvious just how much of an impact the group has had on the
The group gathered in the main room of the Hilo Adult Day Center on Saturday afternoon was small — no more than 25 people. It wasn’t immediately obvious just how much of an impact the group has had on the local community over the past 40 years.
After a few speeches during the center’s anniversary celebration, that impact became clear.
The center opened its doors in 1976, using space at the Kaumana Baptist Church and sharing quarters with a preschool.
At the time, concerted federal and state efforts to care for senior citizens were still in their early phases. The Older Americans Act, which provides federal funding for elder-focused services, was signed in 1965. Ten years later, the state of Hawaii created its first area agencies for aging.’
“The ’70s and ’80s were such exciting times for all of us working in (gerontology),” said Alan Parker, retired director of the county Office on Aging. He remembered taking courses at the university in the subject when they were first offered.
Some of his classmates wrote a paper about creating an adult day care in Hilo. Then they began working to make that paper a reality.
More than 160 kupuna currently participate in the day programs at Hawaii Island Adult Care, the nonprofit organization that grew from the first center.
More than 100 of those elders use the Hilo center, which is now located on Rainbow Drive. There are about 70 people in attendance on any given day.
“It plays such a pivotal role in what the Office (of Aging) is trying to do,” Parker said. One of the primary goals of the office is keeping senior citizens active, engaged, and living in their own homes for as long as possible.
The Hilo center has been in existence for so long that some of its founders now use its services. Betty Nagao was its first outreach coordinator, back when the program first began at the Kaumana Baptist Church. She now participates in the day services.
“People didn’t have anything,” Nagao said of the days before the center opened.
“They were doing nothing, just rotting at home.”
“We started with ten (participants) and just blossomed,” she said.
Nagao was one of the first people that Lori Thal met when she came to interview for a job with Hawaii Island Adult Care.
Thal has been the center’s art therapist for 33 years. After moving to the Big Island from New York, the job provided her with a “wonderful way” to immerse herself in her new home and become part of the Hawaii ohana.
“The person who loves their work or their job never works a day in their life,” Thal said, paraphrasing a Confucian quote.
Evidence of her students’ creativity is everywhere inside the center: festive Valentines Day hearts hang from the ceiling, and koi made of paper scales line the walls to the dedicated Alzheimer’s wing.
That wing is quieter, program director Maile Young said, but participants do the same projects with Thal.
Young estimated that between 60 and 70 percent of seniors who come to the main wing’s programs have an early form of dementia or Alzheimer’s.
The adult day care program is more than just a place for seniors to come and keep busy and engaged.
It also offers much-needed respite for caregivers, who often don’t get chances to step away from their fulltime role.
“It’s important on so many different levels,” said Lizby Logsdon, director of the Honomu Adult Day Center and outreach coordinator for Hawaii Island Adult Care.
“Emotional, physical, everything.”
Logsdon, like many other staff, board members, and volunteers, spoke from experience. She cared for her aging father for six years.
During the anniversary speeches, Parker praised Paula Uusitalo, executive director of the Hilo center, and the staff for keeping up the quality of its programming in the face of rough economic times during the recession.
“I think the last ten years have been exceptionally tough times to run any agency,” he said.
It’s not just staff who contribute to the center and its programs, though. There are volunteers like Bea Abe, who has come twice a week for ten years to wash dishes. Abe is 91.
State representative Mark Nakashima, who along with fellow representative presented Uusitalo with a plaque from the House, described the center as a “beehive.”
Every time he came up to visit, he said, “There are all kinds of things happening.”
State Senator Gil Kahele also presented a plaque on behalf of his chamber.
“It’s a very important service, and you don’t really know as a family, until you need it, how much it helps,” Kahele said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune‑herald
