AROUND TOWN: Silver Key's 'Silver Linings'

Silver Key Senior Services’ 40th anniversary celebration indeed has had a silver lining.

They celebrated with an anniversary Silver Linings breakfast Sept. 15 and 450 people were at the Antlers Hilton in support, and to learn more about the nonprofit’s work. Maybe it’s just the place for them to volunteer, several attendees decided.

Silver Key’s rich history of helping was paired video style with a light, decade-by-decade chronicle of popular dances, TV shows and some dreadfully awful hairstyles. This week the creation of Forrest Shields and Lorri Orwig has moved online. (See the video below).

 All around, the breakfast was a success. Almost $62,000 was raised and couldn’t be more needed, said the morning’s speakers, noting that this year 2.5 million people are turning 65. This is the tip of the Baby Boomer retirement surge. The problem, explained speaker Toby Gannett, “our population is aging faster than our resources can support."

And, admitted several guests, they want to make certain the services for oldsters will still be there several years from now when they’ll need them, too.

They heard first hand from those who have called on Silver Key for help and from those who volunteer, delivering Meals on Wheels, working in the food pantry, providing care and sometimes just offering the special gift of conversation.

Advocate Terri Seay has become “family” for a 96-year-old woman who outlived two husbands and had no children. She was lonely. Sometimes the two woman go for a walk in Monument Valley Park or other times just talk. “She needed a friend,” said Seay. Silver Key has many volunteers who, like Seay, are sometimes the only ones there for lonely seniors, sometimes their only human contact.

Among those at the fundraiser were several Gazette readers who accepted an invitation to go along on a Nonprofits Around Town event. We enjoyed meeting Jean Ann Reid, Barbara Cole, Sadie Wagner and Dee Bertrand and look forward to hosting readers at other events.

Next up for Silver Key: Silver Key Holiday Project which distributes care packages to more than 1,000 seniors: silverkey.org.