BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Investigative Reporter
The annual Senior Fair will be taking place at the Rockland County Community College Fieldhouse on September 12, 2024, from 10 am – 2 pm. Senator Bill Weber’s Deputy chief of Staff John Mulgrew explained what the day is going to entail.
“We have our annual Senior Fair, which has been taking place in Rockland County at Rockland Community College every year since 2012, with the exception of 2020 when it was canceled due to COVID. We are proud to say that this is going to be the, the biggest and best one yet. We have 138 confirmed vendors this year. Last year we had 110. It usually averaged anywhere from 80 to 100 but like I said, we’re now up to 138 as of this moment with a few more possible additions.”
2023 Senior Fair Vendor area
“There will be free food for all the seniors that attend. There is a kosher and vegetarian option which is available courtesy of Polaris Healthcare.”
As far as certain agencies are concerned, a senior citizen is someone who is 65 or older. What age is considered to be senior at the fair? “So, for our purposes, we do make a point that, you know, technically anyone is welcome to attend the fair. For the meal however, we are saying it is intended for people 60 over. You know, we’re not really checking ID’s, if you’re roughly 60 or appear to be about 60 or over, we’ll just assume you are and we’ll give you the, the meal voucher. But, if you’re clearly not 60 we will ask some questions. So, you know there are limitations to it.”
Last year there were close to if not over 1000 people who attended the fair and they are expecting about the same number this year. They had about 725 meals last year and this year they are going to have 850. “So, we want to make sure that those get in the hands of, as many of the actual seniors that are there. If by chance we have leftovers towards the end, we will expand on that and let, anyone who’s looking for a meal can get.
2023 Senior Fair food area
The Senior fair was the project of then Senator David Carlucci in 2012. “He just wanted a way to show the services that were available to the residents in Rockland County. He reached out to partners in government and, within the nonprofits and other agencies and, and just really showing what services were available to seniors. It grew each year, it became something where the seniors were expecting it and they knew they could plan on it each year in their annual calendar.”
The services that seniors will be able to avail themselves of include government agencies, state agencies, such as the New York State Office of the Aging and the Rockland County Office of the Aging. In total there are 13 Rockland County government agencies. To make it easier for the seniors to find them, Mulgrew put all of the County agencies in Row C “Think County, Row C.”
One agency that is going to be there this year that has not been there before and one that Mulgrew says they Are proud of is the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. “They are going to be running mobile office and they’re going to be able to provide many of the same services that you get if you went to the actual DMV. If you do plan to get something done, make sure you bring the proper documentation, your ID just as if you were going to the, the DMV. But pretty much with the exception of, you know, printing out license plates where they’re able to do almost everything.”
With over 138 vendors available, and only four hours to see as many as possible, people need to be selective in what vendors they see and decide which ones they really need to go to.
“Well, there’s different categories. There’s certainly health care doctors, insurance companies, financial planners. Then there are local governments, like I said, so if you know, a lot of times you’re not sure who the right person is to help you, what we find is very often at these senior fairs, you talk to one vendor, you ask some questions and they’re able to kind of point you in the right direction.”
He added, “Well, in this case, a lot of the people that they point you in the direction of happen to be there as well. If someone were to say, actually that’s not a state issue, it’s a federal issue. Well, Congressman Lawler has a table right here so you can go and speak to people from his staff. So there certainly is something for everyone.”
What was the one thing that might have gone wrong last year that they corrected for this year?
“Yeah, so that’s a great question. I always am a big fan of doing that is, is reexamining it while it’s fresh in your head. We increased the number of meals last year, we had 700 I think it was 725 meals. This year, we’re up to 850 meals. So we do want to make sure, you know, everyone who could receive one, like I said earlier, we are going to be a little bit more strict on, on making sure that it is the seniors who arrive, who receive those meals.
There will be breakfast for the vendors that they are providing. “That’s so we don’t have vendors trying to sneak in line and grabbing themselves a meal.”
“The one thing I’m most proud of that we’ve changed this year is when Senator Weber would go to senior clubs over the summer and ask, how can we improve the senior affair? You’ve all been going for years, what can we do to make it better? Well, the feedback we got here was that it’s a great event. A lot of people show up, but that causes parking to be difficult. It is limited to the number of spaces, but they have a huge parking lot and very often the seniors would have to park all the way on the other end of the parking lot and walk quite a distance.”
“We reached out to the Town of Clarkstown and we’re able to get them to provide a mini trans bus. There’s going to be a 16-seater shuttle bus circling the parking lot doing its route and then it’s going to drive down the ramp and basically drop people off right inside the fieldhouse. On that same note, we’re also the Rockland YMCA, they sponsored a six-seat wheelchair accessible golf cart and one of our staff members, he’s going to be the driver for the day. He’s going to be circling in that parking lot, getting people quickly to and from their cars.
And if there happens to be someone in a wheelchair, they can utilize that service as well.”
For as many things that go wrong or not as planned, there are the things that go right or exactly as planned but could still be improved upon.
“I think one thing that went really well last year is,, you know, we didn’t go too crazy with the presentations. You know, we let the vendors kind of speak for themselves. We did have some presentations and we were actually bringing back 22 of those presentations again this year, which were popular last year.”
According to Mulgrew for the most part, people are there because they want to connect with the vendors see what services are available and it’s difficult when you get 1000 people in the, the fieldhouse of RCC to, to get any large number of people to just sit and listen. So, they’re kind of keeping the, the large presentations to a minimum.
The presentations they are going to have include the American Red Cross who’s going to do a presentation along with the Healthier Neighborhoods program. “And that’s so the American Red Cross, which is the whole Hudson Valley area and then the Healthier Neighborhood program, which is a Rockland County Department of Health initiative.”
“The presentation they’re going to do is to let people know about the free smoke detector program that they have and that they’ve partnered with them in the past where they’re able to receive a free smoke detector with a 10-year battery in it. With this program, seniors could have the American Red Cross come to their house install however many smoke detectors they need in the correct spot installed by a professional, 10-year battery where they don’t have to go and, you know, stand on the ladder to change it every six months as recommended. “Yeah, it’s a great program. They’ll do however many you need no charge whatsoever.”
Along with the Red Cross, the Spring Hill Ambulance Corps will be doing a presentation on CPR basically just, you know, the important things to know the basics and choking prevention. “They do classes all the time and those are also free of charge where people can go in, learn how to perform CPR how to save people in the event of emergency. It’s a nice little demonstration they do and was worth the time.
Summing up Thursday Mulgrew stated, “The event runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Rockland Community College Fieldhouse. The seniors tend to arrive early. So I would expect that place to start filling up, by like 9:45 or so. Vendors will arrive between nine o’clock and they should be fully set up and ready to go, by like 9:45. At 10:30 we’re going to have opening remarks and presentation by Senator Weber followed by Rockland County Executive Ed Day and then a video presentation from Congressman Mike Lawlor. He’s going to be away in DC at the time.”
One lesson they learned from last year was that they gotta get them their food and you don’t want to wait too long. “So, at 11:15 we’re going to begin lunch service. Another thing we learned from last year, we’re going to do a little differently this year is we’re going to have separate lines based on the food that you want in an attempt to just kind of speed things up a little bit. If you’re looking for ham and cheese, you stand in the ham and cheese line, turkey and cheese, you in this line, tuna salad, egg salad, veggie wrap. The, the veggie wrap, the tuna salad and the egg salad, those are all also kosher options. This was courtesy of Polaris Healthcare.”
Lunch will continue to be served until every senior is fed or we run out of the 850 meals. Then at 1215, we’re going to have the presentation I mentioned from the American Red Cross and the Healthier Neighborhoods program. At 12:30 we have Spring Hill ambulance corps doing their CPR and choking prevention.
There will not be any food being sold separately for non-seniors, from the food being given to the seniors. “We are forced to use the official food vendor of RCC. There will be a vendor, not a it’ll be the RCC vendor. Yeah, but they’re not really selling food. So there, there would potentially be you know, some vending machines inside or something like that, but there, there’s not a separate vendor or a food truck or anything like that selling meals.”
He added, “If there’s, let’s say a caregiver that’s assisting the senior in, in getting there, we don’t necessarily, we don’t have a, a free meal for them and there, there isn’t really a separate food vendor for that person.”
With more vendors coming how many people do they feel are going to attend? Mulgrew is fairly confident they’re going to well over 1000 people. They were able to get about 1000 people last year with the 110 vendors last year with each vendor, most of them do have two people there. As it turns out, some of those vendors could not be there this year, yet they still have 53 new vendors this year. “So, it does kind of fill the room just on the vendors.”
One of the reasons they were able to get this to the point they have it is they’ve been able to kind of work on this one much longer than we did last year. “So, although last year certainly did take a lot of work and we were planning it for quite some time, you know, last year with Senator Weber’s first year in office, there was a lot of other stuff that needed to be done just to get the infrastructure in place and to get us up and running. This year, you know, we were well established on our way. So, I was able to get the save the date out in February of this year. So really this has all been in the works since February, able to reach out to all of the vendors from last year and during that time, really trying to spread out and reach new vendors. So, it’s been a long time coming, but I’m, I’m happy to say that it’s this week or it’s going to go, very well. It’s always well received, and we’ve made every effort to try to improve it, to make it the best experience possible. You know, not only for the seniors but for the vendors too. So, we don’t charge the vendors to participate but we certainly do want to make it worth their time and I think we do accomplish that.”