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North Shore Senior Center’s Kenmore branch emphasizes services, food pantry and community support
Summary
Pasha Mohajer Jasbi, program supervisor for the North Shore Senior Center’s Kenmore branch, outlined membership benefits, pandemic-era meal delivery, a weekly food pantry and partnerships such as Hope Link during an interview on the city podcast Let's Talk Kenmore.
Pasha Mohajer Jasbi, program supervisor of the North Shore Senior Center, described programs, membership and services at the Kenmore branch during an interview on the city podcast Let's Talk Kenmore. The Kenmore location operates from a caretaker cottage in Rhododendron Park and is one of four sites that together serve adults across the North Shore network.
The senior center’s work centers on reducing isolation and providing low-cost services and social supports. “One of our deepest goals is anti loneliness and anti isolation,” Mohajer Jasbi said. She told host Amber Clifton that membership fees and donations help sustain programming and that activities are open to adults of all ages, not only seniors.
Mohajer Jasbi said membership costs $48 a year and supports general programs; before the COVID-19 pandemic the North Shore Senior Center had roughly 7,000 members across its sites and more than 500 volunteers. The Kenmore branch offers regular classes (watercolor, sketching, chair Pilates), an online-and-print quarterly program catalog for Oct.–Dec., and outdoor pickleball lines on the Rhododendron Park court added with support from the city of Kenmore.
The center runs a community lunch program — described as popular and offered for a low donation (about $4–$5, with free meals available when needed) — at the larger Bothell location. During the pandemic, Mohajer Jasbi said the organization shifted to meal delivery and pick-up: “Our bus drivers, our transportation department delivered lunches,” she said, and volunteers staffed large daily pick-up distributions.
Kenmore hosts a food pantry that Mohajer Jasbi said runs on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, roughly 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., and is staffed by volunteers. The pantry accepts nonperishable donations Monday through Friday and is open to people of all ages. North Shore also partners with the nonprofit Hope Link; Hope Link’s mobile food market visits the area on the first and third Tuesdays, and the schedule effectively provides some form of food distribution each week.
The Kenmore branch provides connections to social services through licensed social workers based at the Bothell site who travel to other locations as needed; Mohajer Jasbi said those staff help with legal aid referrals, assisted-living information and confidential counseling. She also emphasized the center’s outreach work to encourage people who are isolated to visit: “I almost had four people in 18 months come into my office and say, ‘I almost didn’t come in today. Last night, I thought about killing myself,’” Mohajer Jasbi recalled, adding that seeing those people engaged again was a high point of her work.
Membership and program information is available online at northshoreseniorcenter.org; Mohajer Jasbi said paper catalogs are available at the Kenmore site, the Bothell site and at some City Hall locations. She encouraged residents to view the senior center as a community resource: “The senior center belongs to the community,” she said.
For people interested in volunteering, donating food or registering for classes, Mohajer Jasbi said to consult the center’s website or call the North Shore Senior Center for the latest schedules and requirements.
