SUNDERLAND — After extended discussion, the South County Senior Center Board of Oversight showed support for applying for a $200,000 grant that, if received, would fund a feasibility study for the former South Deerfield Congregational Church.
Meeting at the Senior Center’s new administrative space in Sunderland last week, the Senior Center Board of Oversight, composed of Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately Selectboard chairs Trevor McDaniel, Tom Fydenkevez and Joyce Palmer-Fortune, discussed five-year and long-term planning for the South County Senior Center, which has been without a permanent building since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The South Deerfield Congregational Church has been eyed as a potential long-term home for the Senior Center.
“The study would allow for the three towns to determine whether the building could serve as a senior center and the affordability of the necessary improvements,” said Denise Mason, a Deerfield Planning Board member helping with the grant application. “The second part of the funding request is for funds to conduct a long-term master plan for the next 50 years of regionalized senior services. Funds would be used to engage a design team to facilitate the planning process for long-range space and service needs.”
With Deerfield and Sunderland’s support letters in hand, the Senior Center is waiting for Whately’s approval at Tuesday’s meeting, which lies just ahead of a Nov. 10 application deadline for the Efficiency and Regionalization Grant Program. If Whately’s Selectboard does not approve the letter of support, Deerfield and Sunderland will pursue the $200,000 grant anyway, but support from all three towns would provide a stronger case for awarding the grant.
Even if the study determines the church is not a feasible location for the Senior Center, McDaniel said Deerfield plans to renovate the building anyway — with several hundred thousand dollars already appropriated, along with potential help from Deerfield Academy — because residents have showed support for keeping the building standing.
The letter of support came before Whately’s Selectboard last week, but the board passed over it because members wanted more information. Thursday night, Palmer-Fortune said she supports the idea of the grant, but raised concerns about asbestos or mold in the South Deerfield Congregational Church, noting Whately’s support is only available if no commitment is made to move the Senior Center until a feasibility and environmental study are done, which Fydenkevez and McDaniel agreed to.
“Choosing a location, even an interim one, has to be based on our needs. I want to make it really clear, we would support this grant if we took a closer look at it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good place for the seniors until there’s an environmental assessment. … I don’t want the grant to be a commitment to moving.”
Mason said asbestos and mold remediation is “a given” and nobody would be expected to move into the building if it wasn’t safe.
“We will be renovating the church regardless,” Mason said. “The church was given to the town, which I just found out, for senior services.”
McDaniel said he thinks the church “will make a good transitional space” while the three towns look for a place and money to build a permanent facility. He emphasized this grant and a move would be helpful for the towns because the Senior Center’s current $3,000 per month in rent for the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in South Deerfield and Sunderland’s administrative space cannot work for years at a time.
“We don’t have the money of Wellesley or Hadley,” McDaniel said. “We have so many massive projects going on, I don’t know where we go if we don’t go in that building.”
Mason emphasized the feasibility study, whatever its result may be, is a part of the “transitional” process the Senior Center has to go through as it finds a permanent home.
“If the study doesn’t support it, we won’t hold anyone to it because we wouldn’t do it either,” Mason said. “Where do we want to be five years from now? We’re at stage one right now.”
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.