The Luis Oasis Senior Center in Orcutt has a new face. For the last three months, Rovi Butcher has been calling the shots for the center while trying to learn the ropes of a new community.
The winds of change are constantly blowing, and the center in Orcutt isn’t outside their sway. It will soon be moving. The lease is up—has been up, actually—and the organization is heading out. The Orcutt Union School District has been leasing the buildings the center has occupied for the last 27 years for $1 a year. The district now needs to develop the land, which leaves the center looking for a place to go. Butcher said the district has been gracious, allowing the center to continue using the land even though the lease expired five years ago.
The center offers support groups, such as KinCares and grief support; entertainment; creative outlets like ceramics and silversmithing; music and dance classes, and other events for the 50-plus crowd in the Santa Maria and Orcutt community. But the center isn’t just for elders. It provides a meeting place for groups that serve the community, including Narcotics Anonymous and the Los Padres Artist Guild.
“I came in here in a kind of tough situation,” said Butcher, who was appointed the new director when the previous director left in the middle of preparations for the relocation of the senior center.
Butcher has had to make do with what she has, looking for the silver lining.
“I have one person, Doug, [who is a] part-time administrative assistant. With him and a host of volunteers who are seniors—Aubrey is my biggest volunteer here—we’re trying to hold the center up,” she said.
It’s a big job considering the center’s membership has increased 150 percent in the last three years. The center is home to almost 700 registered members, and a fresh wave of new members is on the horizon.
“There’s supposed to be a bubble of people out there, and we want to be there to serve them,” volunteer Aubrey Collins said.
“It’s hard to flourish just through grants,” Butcher explained. “The granters will later on say, ‘Well, how will you be sustainable eventually?’”
To make ends meet, the center holds such fund-raisers as pancake breakfasts and theater buyouts to offset operating costs. The impending move has necessitated the launching of a capital campaign geared toward the construction of a new building off of Foster Road.
Intern Michael McCone compiled this week’s Community Corner. Send comments or ideas to the Sun via e-mail at intern@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 17-24, 2011.