Mission and History of

The St. Cloud Senior Citizen Center, Inc.

Saint Cloud, Florida

Mission

We are an activities center for seniors as opposed to a senior care center. Our heritage is as a tourist club.

Our facilities are owned and maintained by the City of St. Cloud. Senior activities are conceived, organized and operated by seniors. We have ball room dancing to live music every Monday night. During the high tourist season, November through March, we have shows on Tuesday night fearturing our Orchestra, our Chorus, local talent, gospel singers, Elvis impersonators, high school dance teams and more. Every Saturday night during the high season, and at least once per month during the summer, we have country dancing, usually to live music. This is about 80% line dancing with couples making up the rest. We have Karaoke on Sunday nights. For all these events attendees bring snack which are served during breaks.

Special annual events include a Queens Ball, Christmas Eve Party, New Year's Eve Dinner Dance, Golden Wedding Anniversary Celebration and our Senior Prom.

Our mission is to provide to senior residents and seasonal visitors an array of activities that will make them feel at home in the City of St. Cloud. We do this through 31 self supporting clubs. The clubs encompass musical and dance performance, hobbies, charitable works, self help and state-of-origin. We minimize cost by having an all voluteer staff.

The Club Presidents elect an executive board to run certain events and to allocate meeting rooms, dates and times back to the clubs. We keep our costs to an absolute minimum by having an all volunteer staff.

We have space and meeting time to include new clubs. Digital Photography, Computers, Needlework, Tai-Chi, and a back stage club would be welcome additions.

History

The State Clubs are the predecessors of all activities, clubs and in fact the Senior Center itself.

The oldest state club on record is the Ohio Club organized on February 23, 1911. It's name then was he Ohio Society of Saint Cloud. The Iowa Association was formed in 1914. The New England and Wisconsin Clubs wer formed in 1916. The Pennsylvania and New York Clubs were formed in 1917. As some point the clubs combined forces to become the Saint Cloud Tourist Club. A club house was built and opened in 1923. In 1996-97 hall B, now known as the Annex was opened. The Annex and Shuffleboard Club are located between Ohio and Indiana Avenues at 8th and 7th Streets. The original Senior Center building on that site was demolished after a new Senior Center and Special Needs Evacuation Center was constructed on 17th Street near the Civic Center in 2002.

In the 1960's the Golden Age Club was incorporated into the Senior Center. At that time both the Silver Clouds Chorus and the Silver Clouds Orchestra came to be. Both are thriving musical entities today.

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