CAIRO — The director of the former Grady County Senior Center said she believes seniors in Grady County still need a physical location to meet, and she indicated that commissioners looking to move into the center’s former 17th Avenue home should consider looking elsewhere.

“I really think it’s a need in our community,” said Hollie Stokley, who spoke at last week’s meeting of the Grady County Board of Commissioners.

Churches in the Grady County Ministerial Association have offered to host activities for seniors, an option County Administrator Buddy Johnson believes could lead to increased participation, ever since the Southwest Georgia (SOWEGA) Council on Aging decided to permanently shutter senior centers in Grady and 13 other counties due to the coronavirus pandemic. But while some services, such as food deliveries, are still being run by local businesses, Stokley said the county’s seniors still require a single physical location where they partake in activities.

“It’s kind of like children and how they have to interact and they have to be around peers,” she said. “Seniors are the same way.”

Seniors who lack stimulation, such as a space to interact with others or a part-time job, can develop loneliness and depression, said Stokley, who added that she still keeps in contact with the seniors formerly under her care.

A future senior center could be self-sufficient by relying on partnerships with local businesses, similar to how it was run prior to SOWEGA’s involvement, Stokley said.

Stokley also expressed a desire for the senior center to move back into its former home on 17th Avenue, which is currently being eyed as a potential future office for the Grady County Board of Commissioners. The former director suggested that the commissioners instead consider purchasing another property in the area for their future home rather than using the former senior center.

Commissioners voted earlier this month to begin the process of moving into the county-owned building, originally constructed in the late 1990s, pending a legal review.

Richard Jordan, a citizen who spoke during the meeting’s public comment period, said he believed the decision to move into the former senior center building would be a costly “power grab” by the commissioners that would cost the county undetermined amounts of money in upgrades in order to convert the structure to the county’s purposes. Jordan said commissioners should instead consider converting the building into a community event center that could generate funds, or consider other purposes, such as an alternative school building.

Johnson said other options have been considered.

“I don’t want there to be any confusion that that’s just been written off the table,” he said. “There has been thought put into this.”

The county administrator also noted that the decision to close the senior center was not the county’s but SOWEGA’s.

“This is not abandoning any of our seniors,” Johnson said. “We certainly want to do the best we can for them and give them the best we can have.”