Published: January 29, 2008 01:03 am            

SENIORS: Nights Out offer socializing in luxury

Dinner out is a luxury. So’s a trip to the movies, the hair salon, even the grocery store, when you don’t drive any more.

Josie Porth would like to put a bit of luxury back into local senior citizens’ lives, so she’s offering to do the driving for them.

Porth has organized a “Senior Night Out,” on Feb. 13, that has her chauffeuring 22 senior citizens from Barker to DeFlippo’s Restaurant for an early Valentine’s Day dinner. She’ll bring them to Lockport in a lushly appointed MAC Limo bus, wait while they have dinner and dessert, then take them home.

It’s the first of what Porth hopes are regular Nights Out — or days out — for seniors who still have the drive to get out in the world, but no way to get there.

“This is from my heart,” Porth, said. “I think, ‘I’m gonna be just like them someday,’ so if I start this now ... .”

Transportation is a major issue for seniors in rural Niagara County, according to Christopher Richbart, director of the county Office for the Aging. Every survey he’s seen, and every task force he’s taken part in, identifies the lack of transportation options as a prime factor in diminished senior life quality.

“In research, seniors clearly indicate they want to be able to stay in their homes and live out their age, not go into institutions. Just being able to get into town, and be with other seniors, be with other people generally, is very important for seniors’ well being — and it’s difficult,” Richbart said. “Rural life is a big challenge. Financing and logistics, how to make (mass transit) economically viable when people are scattered, is the issue.”

Porth heard the frustration from seniors last year, when she was employed as a medical driver for Office of the Aging. Her job was to drive them to and from doctors’ offices, one of the few “destinations” that agencies can wrangle any ride support for.

In casual conversation, an elderly man from North Tonawanda told Porth that since he gave up driving, the thing he missed most was going out to dinner. He could catch rides to a county nutrition site but it’s hardly the same.

“‘We’re not all (infirm), but we’re all just waiting to die,’” Porth recalled him saying. “That really got me.”

Porth, now a paid senior companion with the Home Instead agency, organized Senior Night Out to help to the void she sees in accommodations for seniors.

Since she has a bus driver’s license, she approached MAC Limo Company owner Mike Collette about letting her drive a bus limo on special occasions. They struck a deal in which Porth can have the bus on lower-demand days — typically Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday — at a discounted per-rider rate.

With Collette’s OK, Porth said she shopped the basic idea to directors of five or six larger senior centers around Niagara County — but none got back to her. She was ready to forget it when a casual conversation with her chiropractor, Niagara County Legislator John Syracuse, put her in touch with Barker Senior Citizens.

They’re definitely willing to give it a whirl, Director Jo Ann Greenwald said.

“If you don’t have your own transportation, you just are not able to go. That’s the reality for seniors out here,” she said. “This is a wonderful opportunity.”

Porth took the limo to the Jan. 18 meeting of Barker Senior Citizens to let members see whether it was something they’d be comfortable traveling in. Their reaction to deluxe touches like leather seating, a big-screen TV and SurroundSound left no question.

“They had a ball just sitting on the bus,” Porth said.

Porth had approached the group with a simple offer: to take them wherever they’d like to go for one evening. Members thought a Valentine’s Day dinner out somewhere sounded nice, but they didn’t have a specific place in mind, so Porth contacted Dominick DeFlippo and asked if he could create a special fixed-price menu for them.

Again, no arm-twisting was required, and the offer that came back was choice of three entrees, bread, dessert, coffee or tea for $10 per person, tip included.

The limo fare is $15 per person, making the seniors’ special night out an affordable $25.

There are some limitations. Participants have to be able to walk, because the bus limo is not wheelchair accessible. The bus normally seats about 26, but reservations will be limited to 22 to leave room for walkers, Porth said.

Syracuse sees in Senior Night Out a possible model for addressing a problem that affects the elderly countywide.

“There is always a need for senior transportation and here’s a perfect opportunity to provide it with a private partnership,” he said. “Josie is really on to something. ... Kudos to her and MAC Limo for stepping up.”

The county likely wouldn’t want to fund or manage a transportation enterprise, but if grants were available to support and expand private service, the county could act as a pass-through agent to help it along, Syracuse said.

For now, Porth said she’s simply looking for more senior groups to simply try her idea and show local businesses that the demand exists. If it does, she’d try booking trips to theaters, shopping centers and/or Seneca Niagara Casino.

Any group interested in organizing a day or evening trip should call MAC Limo general manager Matt Tuttle at 471-1665.

        

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