CHARITY INSIDER

WINTER 2022

Photo: Executive director Jeremy Kaplan greets a longtime Senior Center member and volunteer at Encore’s Heart to Heart benefit, June 2021.

ENCORE FOR THE AGED

IN 1977, SR. LILLIAN MCNAMARA, Sr. Elizabeth Hasselt, and Fr. George Moore, concerned about a spike in homelessness among the elderly of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, founded Encore Community Services as a modest community center in the basement of St. Malachy’s Church on West 49th Street. By the time Sr. Hasselt retired as executive director in 2018, Encore had grown into a multipurpose agency delivering a wide array of services to the elderly on the West Side between 14th and 110th Streets.

With sponsorship from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, Encore touches the lives of more than 5,000 seniors per year, providing more than 500,000 meals (many home-delivered) and offering an emergency pantry, wellness checks, social and artistic engagement, and case management services. Encore also operates two buildings with apartments for 172 formerly homeless and/or low-income seniors, in many cases overseeing social services and other supports to residents.

Executive director Jeremy L. Kaplan has been leading Encore since Sr. Hasselt’s retirement, and will oversee plans to double the number of meals it serves, increasing the total to 1 million annually. Archways asked him to give readers a snapshot of the agency’s work and the challenges its clients have faced during the pandemic.

The staff and volunteers of Encore Community Services work tirelessly to improve the lives of aging New Yorkers, ensuring they have what they need to not just survive, but thrive. Seniors deserve an encore!

The need among seniors is great, and services for them is the lowest-funded line in the New York City budget. Seniors deserve more than one meal a day, five days a week; they deserve to be financially stable; they deserve to be creative, mentally stimulated, and connected to community. 

Our greatest challenge is providing what seniors deserve, and finding a way to pay for it.

The need among seniors increased during the pandemic. Encore saw a 45 percent increase in the need for meals and emergency groceries and a 70 percent increase in the need for financial assistance (rent, benefits, financial counseling, budgeting, debt reduction). At the same time, social isolation among seniors became its own epidemic.

While Encore never closed and we never stopped home-delivering meals, our Encore Senior Center was closed to in-person services from the start of the pandemic until June 28, 2021. Now it is open and busier than ever. In addition to seeing 100 to 125 seniors there each day, the center is providing grab-and-go meals and has a robust calendar of virtual programs and friendly calls to keep homebound clients connected to the community. Unfortunately, we still have to limit our capacity for safety reasons, and we don’t like the thought of any senior not being able to join us or having to cut their visit short. Encore is their home and they desperately miss it when they aren’t here.

One day recently, a man came in for lunch and was afraid about an upcoming surgery. He’s alone and has no family. I was able to sit with him and assuage his fears. Our case manager was able to set up meals for when he returns home, arrange for someone to escort him to and from his surgery, and put other supports in place.

To serve aging New Yorkers is our greatest blessing. They fed us, raised us, nurtured us – they helped to build this city and now it’s time for us to give back. Our staff is devoted to our members and on any day, you can see a smile from a senior or get a thank you from someone who is homebound, and it energizes you.

Seniors are the heart of Encore. Every day I find tremendous hope in their resilience and zest for life, in the determination of our staff, and in the devotion of our board, funders, donors, and volunteers.

For more information on Encore Community Services, visit encorenyc.org.