St. Albert’s seniors’ club kicked off its 50th anniversary this week with wine, awards, and a golden expo.
About 60 people were at the Red Willow Place June 3 to kick off the St. Albert Seniors Association’s inaugural Golden Expo. The expo, a trade show featuring everything from mobility scooters to crocheted koalas, was one of the many special events happening in town this Seniors’ Week.
The expo’s kickoff included a proclamation of Seniors’ Week by St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron and music by the Groovy Gang (the association’s in-house choir).
The seniors’ association organized the Golden Expo on June 3 to kick off its 50th anniversary, said organizer Tanya Hamilton.
“Seniors’ Week is obviously really big for us, and the 50th anniversary is also really big for us,” she said.
The expo featured a vendor’s hall, CFCW Radio broadcasting live on site, free talks on fraud prevention and other topics, and free coffee and cookies. June 5 saw the association offer free and paid workshops on various topics as part of Seniors’ Week.
The expo was part of this year’s super-sized celebration of Seniors Week, which involved a long list of free and paid activities for seniors, city community development co-ordinator Tricia Boonstra said. These included the unveiling of the St. Albert Hugs and Stitches intergenerational quilt on June 4, an Indigenous history writing workshop on June 5, and the inaugural Seniors and Elders Service Awards on June 6.
The association’s 50th anniversary celebrations will continue all summer long with weekend wine gardens, said executive director Linda Ensley. The association will host these gatherings (which are open to the public) every Saturday from June 14 until early September. They also plan to hold a 50th anniversary gala on Dec. 6.
Seniors’ Week runs from June 2 to 8 in St. Albert. Visit stalbert.ca/city/fcss/programs-services/seniors/week/events for a list of activities.
Golden anniversary
The St. Albert Senior Citizens Club started in 1969 when a group of seniors started meeting in the basement of the town’s community hall on Piron (now Perron) Street, writes club historian Yvonne Bull. The club met twice a month for whist, bingo, luncheons, and other activities.
On Oct. 24, 1973, club president Lily Szuba wrote to the Women’s Institute to ask for help to create a standalone seniors’ club building, one that would have space for games, crafts, and reading, and be at ground level (club members often struggled with the basement stairs). The Institute convinced town council to repurpose an old army barracks (then used as a teen centre) as a seniors’ centre that November.
Town staff dismantled the structure and moved it from what is now the Celebration Garden by Chateau Mission Court to 7 Tache St., sliding it across the frozen Sturgeon, Bull writes. The Senior Citizens Recreation Centre held its grand opening on Jan. 19, 1975.
The seniors’ club has gone through six name changes in its lifetime and multiple renovations, the most recent of which was in 2016. Ensley said it now had about a thousand members.
