Stereotypes of older people who watch TV and play bingo all day have no place at the Center in the Park. The Germantown senior center is a hub of activity for everything from pinochle to piano lessons.
So perhaps it is only fitting that a senior center offering free membership and founded amid the tumult of 1960s activism is being honored for its work to ensure equality and acceptance for all who walk through its doors.
Center in the Park’s 2023 Pride in the Park Celebration and LGBTQ+ programming recently received a National Institute of Senior Centers Programs of Excellence Award. The center community will continue the tradition and its commitment with this year’s Pride celebration, scheduled for Friday, June 28.
“It’s a real honor,” said Renee Cunningham, the center’s longtime executive director. “We were really excited and very humbled …”
Described as a “joyous celebration for LGBTQIA+ adults 55 and older and allies,” the center’s Third Annual Pride in the Park Celebration of Diversity and Inclusion will be from noon to 2:30 p.m. It promises lively entertainment, music, drag performances, a photo booth, resource tables, vendors and more.
Cunningham explained that the journey of Center in the Park (CIP) towards becoming an adult center “where people of all sexual orientations and gender identities are welcomed, affirmed and now celebrated” didn’t happen overnight. She said it took years of hard work, education, staff trainings and partnerships to reach this point which “all started with a Strategic Plan that identified the need for developing greater LGBTQIA+ cultural sensitivity as an organizational priority.”
According to Cunningham, there was initial resistance and push back from some of the Center’s staff as well as regular participants, called “members.” Despite some early lack of enthusiasm, Cunningham says, “We’ve come a long way during the past decade. We’ve been building awareness, staff cultural competency, and more inclusive programming. Through annual staff trainings, we’ve made great progress and can now boast that we have a Platinum Credential from the national LGBTQIA+ aging organization, SAGE.”
SAGE’s motto, “We refuse to be invisible” powerfully encapsulates the goal at the heart of what Renee Cunningham and others have been working so hard to achieve.
Explaining more about the center’s journey, expanded programming and services, Cunningham said CIP has partnered with the William Way Community Center and the Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia organizations that serve and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.
A legal planning workshop now includes information for same-sex partnerships, an LGBTQ+ social club meets Wednesdays at 1 p.m. and movie screenings at the center include films that may feature LGBTQ+ characters.
Funded by Philadelphia Corporation for the Aging, more than 180 participants, mostly residents of Germantown, visit Center in the Park each day. The center is open Monday through Friday, CIP offers a vast array of public programs, clubs, services, trips, classes and informal activities, “everything from billiards and pinochle, to piano lessons, to yoga… and much more,” Cunningham said.
Asked how Center in the Park became such a forward thinking senior center, Cunningham said it comes from their origin story – when and where they were born. “Fifty-six years ago, we were founded by two older Germantown activists, Marguerite Riegel and Laura Drake Nichols. They felt there was no place in the neighborhood focused on the concerns of elders. With support from Clarice Herbert, Germantown YWCA’s first Black executive director, CIP – then called Center for Older Adults Northwest – was born in the Y on Germantown Avenue in 1968.
“Remember,” Cunningham continued, “this was the 60’s, an era of great change with civil rights activism and feminism, the time when Maggie Kuhn, who had worked at the Y, founded the Gray Panthers to combat ageism and stereotypes of old people. Eventually, in 1986, we outgrew the YWCA space and moved into the adjacent Vernon Park Library building becoming Center in the Park.”
That history is at the root of how the center became the vital place it is today, Cunningham concluded.
“Our members call us ‘the gem of Germantown’ but I believe we are Germantown’s best kept secret,” she said. “I want us to be less of a secret. I want more people to know and benefit from all we have to offer, to bring their voice and talents to Center in the Park, to age positively with us.”
For more information, visit centerinthepark.org.
