JCCOA Warm Hearts Winter 2025-2026 Fundraising Campaign (Delores Turner)
Delores Turner
Campaign: Warm Hearts: JCCOA Seniors Who Kindle Our Community’s Spirit
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Finding a Place at Table 8
For Delores Turner JCCOA provides exercise, conversation, creativity, and a bit of luck at bingo. Pull up a chair to find such friends and age-defying purpose.
Though Delores Turner was born in 1930 and is a bit slower on her feet in her 90s, each weekday begins with purpose. Monday through Friday she visits the Jefferson County Council on Aging senior center, riding the JCCOA bus from and to home. “It’s like going to work: you get up, get dressed, get out, and come back,” she says with a smile. “It helps keep the walls together.”
Staff members at the senior center have told Delores she’s such a regular that it’s as if she too were an employee. The reason she remains faithful is simple. ” I like to come here,” she says. “It’s always nice to have somebody to talk to. You really keep alive by being active, in conversation with different people.”
Her days start with exercise, aa regimen her doctor encouraged. “My doctor told me I need to do something, so I come to exercise,” she says. “We do it for about 45 minutes.” Delores attributes her active body and mind to such interaction and conversation with fellow seniors.
Another highlight of her days at JCCOA is when she settles in at lucky Table 8 for Bingo. “When I first came here, bingo is what kept me wanting to come,” she says. Prizes include snacks, though Delores admits a preference for the occasional games that pays out cash. “I like the fact that I can win one time with money,” she says with a laugh. “Get my money, get my sweets.”
Other offerings at JCCOA encourage learning and creativity. Delores spends her downtime improving her crocheting skills. “I’m just learning,” she says. A senior center she attended in Maryland, prior to her move to Jefferson County in 2024, offered crocheting class, as well as regular outings. “That was a great center,” Delores says. “We really went a lot of places. It was a very good program.” Members of the crocheting class donated completed blankets to a hospital.
Delores would love to see a fully funded JCCOA host similar programs, as it did before COVID took a toll on the senior center and its fundraising efforts. “I’d like a crochet class,” she says. “And a little traveling- going out to the movies or a show,” On her personal bucket list are plays at the Old Opera House and the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. ” I want to go to the casino and watch the horses.”
For Delores JCCOA offers broader connections outside her loving family. “It gives you that desire to get out of the house and do things,” she says. “You need outside interests. It expands your life. When you find somewhere to go and something to do, it’s like it gives you 20 years. I tell my daughter, my son, that when they do something nice, “Ya’ll give Mommy 20 years or more life.’ You don’t know what a relief JCCOA is. It really helps you. It helps you have the desire to live more.”
“Always look for other interests,” Delores counsels other seniors. “Keep learning. You’re never too old to do the things you didn’t have time for when you were younger, you can enjoy them as you grow old.”
At JCCOA’s senior center, Delores is doing just that- moving, learning, laughing, and trying her luck at Table 8, living life to the fullest with friends she’s made along the way.