Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Outgoing Senior Coordinating Council Executive Director Mary Goulart (standing) has shepherded the expansion of Saratoga's senior programs and will continue to be active member of the senior community from her new post at the Saratoga Retirement Community.
Senior Center director takes job at retirement community
By Oakley Brooks
This winter Mary Goulart, the outgoing executive director for the Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council, took a tragedy that shook Saratoga's senior community and spun it around to a positive end.
Friends of Shirley Ewins and local emergency workers--who took more than a day to get into her house in January only to discover her dead--have teamed with Goulart to develop a program. It would establish a local network of emergency contacts, on-call services and personal information to keep people such as Ewins from falling through the community's cracks.
Goulart said she hopes to even have key locations and security codes, for seniors on file with the police department, through the Senior Health Awareness Registry Program.
Although she'll have to coax its growth from her new position across town at the Saratoga Retirement Community, she pictures the spread of the awareness registry to surrounding towns and, eventually, throughout the state. Those involved in the senior council say the program's enactment is a fitting end to Goulart's administration.
"Mary's been an innovator and a fine leader," said Paul Clarke, who recently gave up his position as president of the senior council board.
Since taking over as senior council director in 1998, Goulart has pushed the program to new levels; she oversaw interior makeovers of the senior center and Adult Care Center, and now has the seniors taking computer and line-dancing classes. Active membership in the senior council, which encompasses Saratoga and surrounding areas, is near 750.
"We're very active, compared to nearby centers, and I think we're about the only one that doesn't have bingo," said Jo Trimble, the new president of the senior council.
Goulart's creative fundraising is one reason the senior council programs have been able to grow. The group receives only their housing, utilities and maintenance in-kind from city. It pays for other operating costs through grants, fundraisers and a small endowment. Last fall, Goulart and the council gathered $24,000 by holding their own auction.
And the council will have to continue its resourceful ways in the coming years, as local baby boomers enter the ranks of the retired. statewide. The over-65 population is expected to jump by 3 million over the next 20 years, and, locally, Trimble said, she's seen a rise in senior council membership every year since she became involved in 1998.
Goulart called the coming onslaught of seniors a "typhoon" and said she believes it will challenge community resources locally.
"One of the biggest problems that's not being addressed is low-income seniors--people who are driven into poverty as the cost of living goes up," said Goulart. "It's difficult to ease that problem in this valley."
As the marketing director at the expanding Saratoga Retirement Community, Goulart will work to put seniors in housing. In two years, the community plans to have 400 units of all types at the old Odd Fellows assisted-living site.
She'll also offer assistance to the senior council as it implements the new awareness registry beginning in June.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
