What Is Actually Inside the Senior Centers in Northern Colorado

There is a building in almost every town in this region where a room full of people gathers on a weekday to eat lunch, play cards, get their blood pressure checked and sign up for a bus trip. Most people who would like it never walk in, because the word on the door sounds like it is for somebody older than they are, and because nothing that happens inside is advertised anywhere you would look.

So we went looking. Here is what is actually in these buildings, town by town, with the numbers.

Chilson Senior Center, Loveland

700 East Fourth Street, next to Chilson Recreation Center. Weekdays 8 to 5. 970-962-2783.

This is the most thoroughly programmed building in the region and the city publishes all of it. Programs for adults 50 and older, with the lunch program at 60 and older.

• Golden Age Cards and Games, Mondays 1 to 4. Pinochle, canasta, hand and foot.
• Mahjong, drop-in, Thursdays 1:30 to 3:30.
• Billiards, weekdays 8 to 4:30, in the lobby, donation only.
• Chess, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 1 to 4:30.
• Table tennis, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 1:30 to 4.
• Craft and Connect, Fridays 2 to 4.
• Fishing club, third Tuesday of the month at 2.
• Senior volleyball, ages 50 and up, Tuesdays in the east gym.
• SilverSneakers classes, daily on weekdays.
• Community dances, second and fourth Mondays, 6:30 to 9.
• Blood pressure checks by UCHealth, fourth Monday, 9 to 1, no appointment.
• Lunch through Volunteers of America, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 11:30 to noon, for adults 60 and older, three dollar suggested donation. Reserve by 11 the business day before at 970-472-9630.
• Day trips year-round, plus extended travel booked out into next year.

The city's activity guide confirms that lobby activities including billiards, chess and crafting carry no fee. A Senior Activity Card for adults 62 and older costs twenty dollars a year and brings priority registration for day trips plus discounts on some programs. Chilson also accepts SilverSneakers, Silver and Fit, One Pass and Renew Active.

Fort Collins Senior Center

1200 Raintree Drive. Weekdays 6 in the morning to 9 at night, weekends 8 to 5. 970-221-6644.

Open to all ages but built around programming for adults 50 and older, and accredited through the National Council on Aging. What is in the building: a twenty-five yard lap pool and hot tub, a gymnasium, a billiards room, a woodworking shop, a library, fitness equipment and classes, indoor pickleball courts with open play sorted by skill level, and mahjong, cards and bridge.

The city also brands a category of programs for ages 60 and older, described as fitness classes and social clubs. The seasonal catalog is called The Recreator and comes out three times a year.

A useful pricing note if you are in Fort Collins: the city's recreation pass tier for ages 60 to 84 is priced at the youth rate, and admission is free at 85 and older.

Greeley Active Adult Center

1010 6th Street. Weekdays 8 to 5, Saturday noon to 4, closed Sunday. 970-350-9440.

Serves adults 50 and older. Drop-in admission is charged, with membership passes also available, and it is worth knowing that this is a separate building and a separate fee from the Greeley Recreation Center. Fitness classes, card games, social gatherings and organized trips.

We could not read Greeley's program list or drop-in calendar, because both live inside a registration platform that does not publish to the open web. That is a genuine gap in this article and the only fix is the phone. What we could confirm independently is that the center is a Weld County Friendly Fork meal site on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11:30.

If you live in Greeley or Evans, that one phone call is the highest-value thing in this article.

Evans

Evans Community Complex, 1100 37th Street. Recreation desk 970-475-1125.

Programs for adults 50 and older and, notably, no membership fee at all. Senior lunch Tuesdays and Fridays at 11, five dollar donation at 60 and older, reserve by 9 the previous day at 970-475-1132. Fitness classes weekday mornings roughly 8:15 to 11: Enerchi, CardioFit, yoga, a classic class, circuit and stability. SilverSneakers accepted. A coordinator runs events and outings.

Evans also has Riverside Park at 4000 Riverside Parkway, with a pickleball court, restrooms and a fishing lake, and the Riverside Library and Cultural Center at 3700 Golden Street.

Eaton

Eaton Area Community Center, 1675 3rd Street, run by the Eaton Area Park and Recreation District. 970-454-1070.

The district runs an Active Aging track for adults 60 and older: day trips and international travel, health screenings, fitness classes, the Friendly Fork luncheon in partnership with the Area Agency on Aging with both a sit-down and a drive-through option, and Coffee Talk, complimentary coffee in the lobby on weekday mornings.

Inside the building: a two-court gym used for basketball, volleyball and pickleball, a fitness and wellness mezzanine, an indoor walking track, and a warm-water leisure pool with lap lanes. The indoor track matters in February.

The wellness coordinator is Stephanie Player, 970-982-1064.

Windsor, Johnstown, Milliken and Wellington

These four towns were the hardest to research and we want to be honest about it. Their town websites would not open for us, so most of what follows comes from Weld County and Larimer County rather than from the towns themselves.

Windsor. The Community Recreation Center at 250 North 11th Street is also listed by Weld County as the Windsor Senior Center, with Friendly Fork lunch weekday mornings at 11:15. 970-674-3500. The building has indoor pickleball courts. The Ditch #2 Trail runs behind it, and the free monthly Walk with a Doc group meets at that trail entrance on third Saturdays at 9. Larimer County also listed a Powerful Tools for Caregivers workshop at this recreation center for September of this year.

Johnstown. Johnstown Senior Center, 101 West Charlotte, Friendly Fork lunch Wednesdays at 11:30, 970-587-5251. The Johnstown YMCA at 165 Settler Way has indoor courts and adult classes. Thompson Rivers Parks and Recreation District serves the Johnstown and Milliken area and runs classes for all ages; 970-660-8750 is the number to call because their website would not give us facility details.

Milliken. Milliken Senior Center, 1101 Broad Street, Friendly Fork lunch Mondays and Fridays at 11, 970-660-5040.

Wellington. The town site references a Senior Resource Center in its navigation and we could not open the page. Town hall is 970-568-3381, at 8225 Third Street. Wellington Community Park on Buffalo Creek Parkway has five outdoor pickleball courts, lighted and free, with restrooms and water.

Two county programs worth more than most people realize

Friendly Fork. Weld County runs senior dining at twenty-one sites for adults 60 and older and their spouses. Suggested donation, and the county's position is that nobody is turned away. Beyond the town centers listed above, Greeley alone has sites at Birchwood, Broadview, Greeley Manor, Greeley Senior Housing and Hill N Park. Weld County describes about three hundred volunteers contributing more than twenty thousand hours a year to it.

Weld Aging Well. Free health and wellness classes for adults 60 and older, registration required, class sizes limited. The named courses are worth reading twice: A Matter of Balance, Tai Ji Quan Moving for Better Balance, Walk With Ease, Strong People, Healthier Living Colorado, also offered in Spanish, Healthier Living Diabetes Colorado, Powerful Tools for Caregivers, and Stress-Busting for Caregivers. 970-400-6117, at 315 North 11th Avenue in Greeley.

Those two lists are the falls-prevention and chronic-condition programs that hospitals spend real money trying to get people into, offered free, twenty minutes from most doors in this county.

The Weld County Area Agency on Aging at 970-400-6950 is the front door for a good deal more: options counseling, Meals on Wheels in Greeley at 970-353-9738, in-home services, family caregiver support, help with dental, vision and hearing costs, a chore program, legal services and transportation. Larimer County's Office on Aging is 970-498-7750.

What a pharmacist notices about all of this

Read that Weld Aging Well list again. A Matter of Balance. Tai Ji Quan for better balance. Strong People.

A fall can undo a good year, and sometimes the cause is a medication rather than a carpet edge. Blood pressure medications that drop your pressure when you stand. Sleep aids that are still working at 3 in the morning when you get up. Bladder medications and older allergy medications that fog things slightly. Two prescriptions from two different doctors that do the same thing without either doctor knowing.

Free balance classes are worth taking. A look at the list of everything you swallow is worth just as much, and almost nobody does it, because no single doctor owns that whole list. A pharmacist who has all of it can see things a prescriber treating one condition may not have in front of them.

None of that is a reason to change anything on your own. Do not stop or reduce a medication because of an article. Ask for the review, and take whatever comes out of it back to your prescriber.

Why Haven wrote this

Haven Health was started by the pharmacists at Good Day Pharmacy, here in Northern Colorado. We help people work out Medicare, and that is genuinely most of what we do. But the buildings in this article are where the useful things happen, and none of them were paying anyone to tell you about it.

Every hour, fee, day and phone number here is the kind of thing that changes. Call before you go.

If Medicare is what is on your mind, ask your Good Day pharmacist about us before you call anybody. That is a reference no mailer can offer, and it is why we built this the way we did.