While the Community Center has always served every resident with programs and resources, it’s the town’s seniors who have probably relied on it the most over the years. Consequently, seniors have also suffered more as the building remained mostly closed to the public since the pandemic began, losing out on social, entertainment, and health-focused opportunities.

Last month the Community Center brought back seniors for a very different activity: vaccinations against the virus that had upended their lives. After about six weeks of clinics, more than 90 percent of residents over the age of 65 have received at least one vaccine dose.

Because of this and new guidelines from the state, next month the Community Center will finally open its doors for seniors in its original purpose, bringing people together.

“Our main function for a year—and who would have thought it was going to last this long?—was to do everything we [could] to help seniors get the food they need, and then the vaccines,” said Parks & Recreation Director Rick Maynard. “Now we’re moving back into what we normally do.”

That return to normal will begin on Tuesday, April 13 with a limited offering of the wildly popular senior lunches, which will herald a slow phasing in of other programming, according to Maynard. With reduced capacity, people separated into “pods,” and food and drinks served by staff rather than at a buffet, Maynard said the lunches are being designed carefully to be low risk, and that he hopes to do more relatively quickly.

Simultaneously, pandemic grocery shopping services that have been headed up by volunteers under the Guilford Cares umbrella will be phased out, according to Maynard. That program has seen significantly lower demand—down to 40 or 50 a week from a high of almost 200—as well as a dearth of people able to shop.

“It’s a function we did—I wouldn’t call it an emergency, but as an urgent need for people because of the pandemic. But the pandemic is slowly getting behind us,” Maynard said.

After guidelines in the fall excluded the possibility of senior or community center lunches or significant programming, the Community Center began hosting drive-through or tailgate meals, a program that proved incredibly popular with the town’s seniors, many of whom relished the chance just to see a friendly face from a car window, according to town officials.

“We wish we had thought about the drive-through back in the summer,” Maynard laughed. “The meal is not the most important part, it’s the socialization.”

Officials and staff at the Community Center have previously reported seniors calling in tears, desperate for a return of social opportunities, or sometimes just calling the center to chat with employees for long periods of time. Maynard said before the pandemic, many seniors would show up for breakfast at 8 a.m. and stay past lunchtime, lounging and relishing the chance to spend time around other people.

“This was their home away from home,” he said.

Breakfast and other regular things like big birthday celebrations or in-person entertainment do not have a hard date. Maynard warned that he is ready to pull back if conditions worsen as far as the virus, even re-starting shopping services as needed.

Staff have been stretched thin taking on all the extra responsibilities, according to Maynard, including helping around 200 seniors sign up for vaccination appointments through a sometimes complex online-only system and staffing multiple clinics a week for hundreds of other people to get their shots.

“That was a lot of effort,” he said. “My staff are great—they’re here to do what has to be done, to do what we need to.”

Getting back to business, though, particularly for older, vulnerable residents who have always had more to fear from the virus, is one of the most concrete signs of a permanent recovery from the pandemic, and though the danger and risks are not yet over, Maynard said having seniors back in their beloved Community Center will be a particularly joyous sight.

“It’s a relief for everybody in society if we can get back to normalcy,” he added.