OSCC renovating John St. cafeteria
Thanks in part to a $92,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Oshawa Senior Citizen Centres will be able to renovate the cafeteria and kitchen at its John Street location. On hand for the grant announcement were OSCC executive director Sandy Black, left, OTF volunteer Penny Smith and Jack O’Donnell, a representative from Oshawa MPP Jennifer French’s office. (Photo by Graeme McNaughton).
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
Nearly 50 years since it was first built, Oshawa Senior Citizen Centres’ (OSCC) John Street location is getting a makeover.
Thanks to a $92,500 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the longstanding senior citizen’s centre will be able to undertake some much needed work to its cafeteria and kitchen.
Sandy Black, OSCC’s executive director, says that the current cafeteria, which has not been renovated since the building opened in 1968, will be updated and given a more contemporary feel, including moving the centre’s computers to that space.
“What we’re hoping for is something that really stimulates the senses, the colours less institutionalized and perhaps more inviting. Pastel colours, a nice low ceiling with rafters and the kind of lighting that you might have in a café that you see in the mall,” she says.
“That’s why we’re going to have our computers in here, so someone can sit down like they do at other places with wireless capaciy, sit and have a coffee, have a sandwich and get online. We hope that’s the outcome.”
With the kitchen closed during renovations, hot meals will now be driven over to the John Street centre from its caterer’s main Ritson Road location. Black says the drive is no more than 10 minutes, so it should not affect the quality of the food.
The grant form the Ontario Trillium Foundation makes up half of the money that is needed for the renovations, with the remainder being raised by OSCC.
Black says that, as per the conditions of the grant, work on the cafeteria and kitchen must be completed by March 2018.