Hometown Senior Center has a new owner

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Putnam Aging, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of senior citizens, is now the owner of Hometown West Virginia’s senior center.

The Putnam County Commission has allowed Putnam Aging to work in three of the county’s senior centers, but now that they own the center in Hometown, Director Jenni Sutherland said they can start improving the outdated facility.

“Some of our senior centers are just newer, more up to date, able to run computer labs and other types of activities and the hometown center is just an older building,” Sutherland said.

Melissa Villalobos, the head chef at Hometown Senior Center, said she’s excited for the possibilities after receiving a new oven for their meal program.

“I was in a convention oven right there, and yeah it’s hard preparing 150 meals,” Villalobos said.

Sutherland said having ownership of the building will make it easier to improve the facility with non-removable upgrades.

“So we’re able to cook more meals at one time, but there’s other types of improvements that we’d like to make to the building itself that will now be possible due to this gracious donation by the county commission,” she said.

Sutherland also said potential improvements could include more level floors, a larger parking lot and repairs to the old electrical system.

Putnam Aging will also host a Christmas in July themed picnic on July 25 at Valley Park in Hurricane, West Virginia.

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