As a final treat for his dance class, Glen Blomgren decides to show his students how they’ll look when they’ve learned the “Tush Push.” He points the remote at the sound system, and as soon as the music comes up, his wife Julia, jumps in to the dance, and the two spin, stomp, and waggle their hips to the open-mouthed awe of their class.

“Do you get that stuff better when you do it more often?” a student rushed up to Julia and asked after class.

Definitely, Julia answers, which is why she and Glen hope to offer more than just one weekly dance class at the Mount Si Senior Center.  Since the center’s primary focus is to offer activities for the community, not just senior citizens, they’ll probably get the chance.

The Blomgrens are just two of the many contributors to the full schedule that the center runs every week in North Bend. Besides the dance class and daily lunches, members and visitors can take advantage of classes on senior-specific topics like Medicare and  Social Security, as well as general classes in investments, history, wellness and whatever subject people ask for.  There are special monthly programs, quarterly nutrition classes, Friday afternoon outings, and an ongoing Wii bowling league, too.

“Each month we try to have a special program above whatever else we’re doing,” said  Janet Fosness, who took over as interim director of the senior center earlier this month when Ruth Tolmasoff retired. Next month, for instance, the center will host a program with founding father John Adams, as played by a Seattle attorney, and November will include Veterans’ Day observations.

Fosness thinks some of the regular offerings are pretty special, too, like the Laughing Club.

“I love that class, it’s one of my favorites,” she said, explaining that “it’s just a form of exercise, except when you do it, you put a laugh into it.“

It’s a serious workout,too. “I’ve taken that class, and it tired me out!” Fosness said.

Reaching out

All of these classes, like most of the senior center’s offerings, are available to anyone in the community, no matter their age. The same is true for the center’s eight year-old transportation program, which offers 50-cent to $1 rides to anyone in the Valley, from Monroe to North Bend. In fact, only one of the center’s offerings, senior housing, is restricted to seniors only.

The 33-year-old center has owned a 40-unit low-income housing facility for seniors, Sno Ridge Apartments, since the early 1980s.

“We have tried in the past for an assisted living facility,” Fosness said, but Sno Ridge is strictly for people who can live independently.

So is the center itself, but Fosness says newcomers frequently mistake it for a nursing home.

“We’re an activity center, we have no beds, and no pillows,” Fosness says.

One of the center’s most important offerings to seniors is the opportunity to gather and socialize, through knitting and craft clubs, the various classes, and meals.

“We serve lunch at noon, but people start coming in at 9,” Fosness said.

Lunch can be chaotic, with six or eight to a table, but that is part of the appeal for some.

“Here, I feel like this is all my family,” says Juanita Irwin, a member of the Laughing Club that just met before lunch.

Lunch is also a learning experience, as diners share their news — Mary Ann is getting a new dog, and it was on the news last night that Seattle is the sixth-worst-dressed city in the world — and their rich histories. Juanita is from Puerto Rico, is a Navy brat, and has lived in North Bend for 34 years, and retired teacher Elizabeth used to volunteer as a forest fire lookout for years.

Elizabeth is also a traveler and has inspired Fosness to visit Antarctica. “Elizabeth told me there was a gift shop there!” Fosness explains, laughing.

Volunteerism helps

A lot of the people who take part in one center program are volunteers for another. Center members will lead clubs, help at the thrift store, and help drive people to appointments, and they used to drive the SVT shuttles.

Non-members are often introduced to the center through volunteerism, too.

“I think some people won’t come in the door because they think senior centers are for old people, but they’ll come and volunteer,” said Fosness, who is more than happy to give people a reason to come to the center. “Really, we couldn’t run without our volunteers.”

Volunteers are a big part of the success of the transportation program, which has grown substantially in the past 10 years, from two or three shuttles driven by volunteers, to eight SVT buses, which are almost at their system capacity.

Drivers are paid through allocations from King County Metro and the Snoqualmie Tribe, which make the entire program possible.

“Basically, our rides are 50 cents, and you can’t afford to run eight buses on 50 cents a ride,” Fosness said.

Volunteers have also made the center’s successful thrift store take off. The shop, crowded into a back room of the center, is run entirely by volunteers and stocked solely by donations, and it’s been “a nice little fundraiser,” for the center since it started in 2003. Last year, the shop brought in more than $80,000 for senior center programs.

It is a blessing, in Fosness’ words, serving not only the center but also the community as a place where low-income people can find some necessities, or that unusual thrift-store find essential to a school program.

Members of the center pay a fee of $15 annually, which does help to support the center, but also gives people a feeling of belonging. “I think people like being members,” Fosness says, and as for the membership fee, “I break it down to $1.25 a month, and is it worth a dollar for them to come here?”

The center also receives funding from King County, the state of Washington, the cities of North Bend and Snoqualmie, and Senior Services Northwest, but Fosness hopes to find other funding sources.

Ultimately, she’d like to become more self-sufficient, so she can grow the center into what the community needs it to be, with a larger transportation program, and a greater outreach to seniors.

Only 250 people are paid members of the center, and another 400 are on the center’s mailing list, Fosness said, leaving huge numbers of seniors out of contact with the center.

“I would like to see more seniors, that we can reach out more.… It would be nice even to have the center open more days in the week, because seniors are lonely every day.”

To contact Mount Si Senior Center, visit 411 Main Ave., North Bend, or www.mtsi-seniorcenter.org or call (425) 888-3434.