Silver Bay Community Center Gets Help

$50,000 grant will bolster program that helps older residents and unites the community.

In Silver Bay Friday afternoon, it might have felt a little bit like Christmas.

The community center that is important in bringing people together, received some financial support.

T-Mobile has donated fifty thousand dollars as part of its initiative to help small towns. Silver Bay’s North Shore Area Partners will use the funds to further develop a gathering place downtown.

Wells Fargo Bank donated a building just before the pandemic, and now the additional funds made possible added green space, pollinator gardens and a solar array.

A crucial goal for the Area Partners program is providing a place and support for area citizens as they get older. That help can range from helping with cleaning to much more.

“We can help with meds, and personal care when people get to that point,” said Lise Abazs, Executive Director of North Shore Area Partners.

“A big part of that is just giving respite to the caregivers. Because for a lot of people it is the family and friends who are taking care of people most of the time. And so, we provide support to them as well. We offer respite, we offer support groups. We give them resources or help connect them to resources, things like that. So, it’s kind of covering the whole gamut. We try to do what we can. We can’t do everything, but we really try to do what we can. We really want to help people live their best, and age well right here in our community,” Abazs said.

The program covers citizens in a twelve hundred square mile area of eastern Lake County. The area extends from Gooseberry Falls to the Canadian border, and as far north as Isabella.