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The Greenville City Council accepted an agreement for the Older Americans Act grant to fund projects through the South Central Alabama Development Commission (SCADC) aging and nutrition program at the council meeting on Nov. 14. 

According to the SCADC website, the commission is a quasi-government agency that encompasses the Area Agency on Aging and Planning and Economic Development for South Central Alabama, which is committed to assisting seniors with services covered under the Older Americans Act, Medicare, Medicaid and other state funded programs.

Mayor Dexter McClendon said Greenville has had this agreement with the SCADC since 1988. 

“It’s important for our senior citizens,” McClendon said. “We spent a good bit of money to feed seniors that wouldn’t have a hot meal every day [otherwise], so it’s extremely important for us to do [this] for our citizens. Some of them can’t get out of the house to go to the nutrition center, so we deliver those meals to their homes. The South Central [Commission] helps find grants for us as well, they’ve always been wonderful and a lot of help.”

McClendon said the city’s budget for the SCADC nutrition program is around $180,000 a year. 

The SCADC mission statement includes addressing the optimum needs of older adults and their families that will allow older individuals to maintain independence with dignity in their own homes and communities for as long as possible.  

McClendon said the council has plans to create a larger senior center in town offering more amenities for the community’s senior citizens. 

“We hope to build a new senior center one day, that’s my goal,” McClendon said. “We applied for a grant for the center, but we didn’t get it this year. Hopefully we’ll get it another year, and it will be South Central that helps us get that.”

Greenville’s Multipurpose Senior Center is located on 903 Cedar Street and can be contacted by calling (334) 382-6005.