Vibe Check: The Saratoga Senior Center's 70th Anniversary Celebration
Making full use of the Spa City's most underrated hangout in honor of an iconic organization's milestone. PLUS: Netflix comes to Saratoga, April Fools Day's most convincing joke, and more.
I’ve been to a lot of parties at a lot of venues—some of which are expected (you can’t go wrong with a fundraiser at the Canfield Casino), and some of which are a bit more surprising (like Camp Stomping Ground’s rustic dining hall). But I just found the best place to party in the Spa City: the Saratoga Senior Center. Not only does it have an onsite restaurant headed up by the Spa City’s most considerate chef and double doors big enough to fit Little Lucy’s mobile bar through, but it also has what every Saratoga party I’ve ever been to has been missing: a ping pong table.
Of course, Saratoga’s 50+ population already knew all this; they’ve been congregating at the current Center, a 13,000-square-foot mecca dedicated to the art of socialization, since it first swung open its doors two years ago. But the Senior Center organization has been around a heck of a lot longer than that: Last Friday, Executive Director Lois Celeste and her team hosted a birthday party to celebrate the Center’s 70th—yes, 70th—anniversary.
“Seventy years ago, a group of people decided to raise money and support the older generation through the rest of their journey,” Lois says. “It's our job to make sure that we continue to take care of our older adult populations, so our 70th year is really about building awareness of what we do here.”
For the uninitiated, the Saratoga Senior Center is a non-residential community center that hosts programs, trips, and social activities for adults over the age of 50. A nonprofit organization, the Senior Center also provides crucial services to our community’s seniors including transportation, food assistance, and caregiver support—volunteers will even help with grocery shopping or lawn care. Most notably, the Center provides a sense of community for seniors, many of whom have lost a spouse or are looking for ways to stay active and involved in retirement.
Last Friday’s celebration actually kicked off at 10am, when Saratoga County Supervisor and local historian Matthew Veitch gave a presentation on the history of senior services in the Spa City at Universal Preservation Hall. He spoke of a social organization called the Golden Age Club, which met for the first time at the American Legion at 530 Broadway (approximately where the Saratoga Springs City Center is today) on March 30, 1955. When a space at 162 Circular Street became available in 1959, the Saratoga Senior Center was chartered, and eventually the two entities merged into the organization we know today. In 1979, the Center moved to a new location on Williams Street, where it stayed for more than 40 years, and in 2023, having outgrown that location, moved to its current home at the Saratoga Springs YMCA on West Avenue.
Which brings me to Friday night.
Just as I began to scope out the food table, Matt Richardson from Refresh Kitchen appeared. “You’re vegan, right?” he said to me, remembering my meatless lunch order from more than a month before. “What do you want to eat? I can make you anything.” At a loss for what I wanted to eat (typically we vegans only have one dinner option, not infinite options), I told Matt that he had to decide. He chose a topped crostini trio, which he hand-delivered to me later in the evening.
By the time I met gluten-free financial advisors Candy Flynn and Fred Docous, Matt had already gotten to them, too—they were dipping specially made GF grilled cheese sticks in tomato soup, and eyeing the Senior Center’s extracurricular activities. “Wait, there’s a golf simulator?” Fred said. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have worn a suit!” Then he said the words I’d been hoping to hear: Something along the lines of “No one can beat me at ping pong.”
Naturally, I took him up on that bet. “Meet me at the table at 7:30,” I said.
“You’re drinking red wine?” Fred asked, already scheming. “Let me go get you another.”
While we awaited our table tennis showdown, we joined the crowd in a multipurpose room to watch an abridged version of Matt Veitch’s presentation from earlier in the day as well as a new tear-jerking video that highlights the impact the Saratoga Senior Center has had on the Spa City’s older population. Filmmaker Amanda Bailly spent time interviewing current members about how the Center has changed their life (she even spoke with a couple that met at the Center), and tagged along with a volunteer on a caregiver support visit (the volunteer spent time with a man with dementia while his wife ran errands).
While the video’s not available to watch online just yet, Lois tells me there’ll be plenty of opportunities for the community to see it at events the Center is hosting throughout its anniversary year. Coming up: June 19th’s Music & Mingling, an annual event that will be hosted at Siro’s for the first time; August 18th’s Travers Tee Off golf tournament featuring golf pro Bill Harmon; and August 21’s Platinum 70th Luncheon at Fasig-Tipton, which will honor CBS sports commentator Jim Nantz for his work surrounding Alzheimer’s. “That's going to be huge,” Lois says of the Jim Nantz event. “He's arguably the best sports storyteller of all time.”
If that’s true, maybe Nantz should’ve been on hand last Friday night to witness what was surely one of the best ping pong matches the Saratoga Senior Center has ever seen. I claimed a narrow victory this time, and already have my next match lined up: During Matt Veitch’s morning presentation at UPH, I spotted my friend Spencer, who’s one year older than I am, across the crowd and shot him a text.
“Do you want to hang out at the Senior Center with me in 2046?”
“They’ve got a ping pong table,” he replied. “So, yes.”
—Natalie
Run for It
Saratoga has a new running club, and this one may just be the dating app you’ve been waiting for. (Wait, what? Read this story for context.) The Spa City Run Club’s first Saturday Social run kicks off a week from today with a three-mile (or less) run (or walk) culminating in a social hour at Mrs. London’s. “We care less about the fitness and more about the fun,” the first post on the new group’s Instagram page reads. Interested? You don’t even have to register—just complete a liability waiver and show up.
Up Next
Last June, camera crews were spotted filming at the Belmont, as well as later in the summer at the Permanently Disabled Jockey Fund’s jockey karaoke fundraiser. According to my inside sources (my friend from high school who was behind one of the cameras), they were filming for a Netflix documentary about Thoroughbred racing similar to 2019’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive. This week, Netflix released the trailer for Race for the Crown, a six-episode series that follows trainers, owners, and jockeys over the course of a Grade 1 stakes season, which will be released on the streaming platform on April 22. Featured in the show? Belmont-winning owner Jayson Werth, who spent a considerable amount of time in Saratoga last summer, plus other high-profile owners including Vitamin Water founder Mike Repole, and jockeys including Saratoga native Katie Davis, Johnny V, and the Ortiz brothers.
Save the Date
In honor of Home Made Theater’s 40th season, the organization is celebrating with two evenings of mystery at The Mansion of Saratoga on April 25 and 26. Both nights will feature performances of songs from OKLAHOMA! (the theater company’s upcoming production), a three-course dinner by Chef Rick Bieber, a silent auction, raffle baskets, and a performance of a “marital murder mystery.” Tickets are on sale now.
Fooling Around
Every April 1, I make a conscious effort to avoid social media, because no matter how many times I remind myself that it’s April Fool’s Day, I know that I will be fooled. Despite my best efforts to avoid the holiday altogether, I had two separate people send me the above Facebook post from Mittler’s. They were fooled, I was fooled, and one local who actually called owner Steve Mittler to congratulate him on being chosen for the Culinary Institute of America’s “Golden Chef, It’s Never Too Late” recruitment video was most certainly fooled. “So cool!!!” someone commented on the post. “But wait…This is Steve and it is April Fool’s day...”
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