Kerby Centre is celebrating its 50th anniversary; five incredible decades of serving the seniors of Calgary.
For our anniversary, we are aiming to write 50 stories all trying to answer the question of what exactly Kerby Centre is, but to do that, it’s important to go far, far back and start at the beginning to answer a different question: why is the Kerby Centre? That is to say, how and why did Kerby Centre form those 50 long years ago?
Before the Kerby Centre, there was an organization called the Seniors Citizens’ Central Council of Calgary. It was representative of 10 organized senior groups within the city, with a membership that totalled approximately 4,000 people, and was formed in May of 1970.
According to historical documents – generously provided to the author by folks over at the University of Calgary Archives – the goals of the council were very similar to the goals Kerby Centre and Unison have today:
- “Improve the lot of senior citizens and ensure that their lives are more comfortable
and meaningful
- To reach the unreached older people of Calgary
- To help provide services not supplied by any other agency
- To assist and encourage retirees to participate in community life and service”
To this end, the council conducted a massive survey of seniors and retirees in various areas across Calgary, in part conducted by the School of Social Welfare at the University of Calgary.
The results indicated much of what the council already understood about the needs and vulnerabilities of seniors back in the 70s – issues not too different from what older adults face today.
“[Seniors] suffer from neglect, minimum consideration, and most frustrating of all, lack of prior consultation in all matters affecting them,” a document reads. “
“Their talents and skills have been ruthlessly discarded.”
Moreover, the study indicated that the “delivery systems of those services in existence are incompatible with the physical and psychological realities of retired people.”
The recommendation? Over two-thirds of respondents to the survey supported the creation of a multi-service centre for seniors in Calgary’s downtown core – which would eventually become the Kerby Centre.
In the proposal for this centre, a huge number of available programs and services were planned. Some of them still form the backbone of the work Kerby Centre does today: information and advocacy, housing assistance, food services and personal counselling.
Other services, however, such as a proposed day care or minor physician services, would not make it further past the planning process.
As for a location? A municipal proposal, dated May 9 of 1972, indicates that the “Kerby Memorial Building, on the Downtown Mount Royal College Campus (and soon to be vacated) with some modifications, could serve a most useful purpose as a Seniors Citizens’ Centre.”
The building was formerly the original Mount Royal College and is named after the First Principal of Mount Royal College, Dr. George W. Kerby – who’s family and lineage we plan to cover in a later story!
The Kerby Centre was established at its present site in January 1973, 50 years ago this month, with the assistance of a volunteer board of directors, governmental funding and various grants, as well as the tireless work of one Patricia Allen.
Allen, who held the position of Kerby’s chief executive officer for 35 years before her retirement.
[Allen] was a visionary, an innovative and creative leader whose contributions have enriched the lives of many Canadians,” reads her obituary from her passing in April of 2017. “Her concept was to create a place in the community, where seniors could come together to work together.”
To this day, Kerby Centre stands as evidence of the accomplishments older adults can achieve, the incredible things they create and the legacies they leave behind.
In Patricia Allen’s own words, we are happy to say that Kerby Centre exists as a testament to “nothing about us, without us.”
