Why Should Delaware Care?
The Wilmington Senior Center has been a service hub for elders in and around the city for more than 65 years. Over the past decade, the senior center has continued to face funding hardships, which have now led to a reduction in services.
The Wilmington Senior Center, a longtime gathering space for older residents, will close its doors on Fridays after laying off a third of its staff amid ongoing budget shortfalls. Just how severe the organization’s financial woes are, however, remains unclear.
Executive director Sam Nussbaum said the center, which serves adults over the age of 50, cut five of its 15 employees due to financial strains earlier this month.
“I need to save this agency,” he said. “We don’t have money coming in.”
Nussbaum, who has been running the senior center since 2022, confirmed that Friday closures will be the only service change. He noted that the center made the same cuts during the COVID pandemic.
It is unclear just how serious the center’s budget problems are, as the organization has not filed its annual tax return forms with the Internal Revenue Service since 2020, according to the IRS’s database.
Nonprofit organizations like the senior center are required to file these tax forms called Form 990s every year in order to keep their tax-exempt status. The forms show how nonprofits are spending public and donor money.
The database shows that the senior center’s nonprofit status was revoked by the IRS in May 2024. It is unclear why exactly the center lost its status, but revocations can happen when an organization fails to file its tax forms for three consecutive years.
In 2020, the last year tax data for the senior center is available, the organization brought in almost $875,000 in revenue, capping off a steady decrease over the course of a decade. The center brought in nearly $2 million in 2011.
This June, the Wilmington Senior Center’s nonprofit tax status was reinstated. The organization’s tax forms between 2021 and 2024, however, are still missing.
After an initial interview, Nussbaum did not respond to subsequent requests for comment about the organization’s finances.
Loraine Bertuola, who sits on the senior center’s board of directors, declined to comment for this story. Board president Italo Carrieri-Russo did not respond to requests for comment.
Decades of service, limited support
The Wilmington Senior Center, located near the city’s Brandywine Village neighborhood, has been a social and wellness hub for the elderly community since 1956, serving adults both in and outside the city.
They offer a range of programs, including affordable meals, health workshops, and activities such as computer classes, Bible study, Pilates, and trips to local farmers’ markets. Memberships only cost residents $25 a year or a one-time payment of $500 for a lifetime membership, according to the center’s website.
The center receives a little more than $200,000 from the state annually, Nussbaum said. But its budget sits around $660,000, so the center has to make up more than $400,000 every year.
Mayor John Carney said he was unaware of the center’s budget issues, but noted that senior centers are a “state function.”
“[The state has] a whole budget for senior centers, so we have not been in that business,” Carney told Spotlight Delaware.
Wilmington does not allocate any funds in the city budget directly to the senior center, but sometimes city council members will use their own discretionary funds as grants, and the mayor occasionally will make a donation, said Caroline Klinger, the mayor’s spokeswoman.
This fiscal year, council members collectively donated $2,750 to the senior center.
Earlier this month, the center held a ‘Legacy of Leadership Gala’ and fundraising event, honoring notable Delawareans like former Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, the WRK Group CEO Logan Herring, and local boxing legend Dave Tiberi. Individual tickets for that fundraiser cost $175. It is unclear how much the gala cost to put on, or how much money it raised for the center.
Wilmington resident Maxine Shaheed has been going to the senior center for 15 years. She attends three times a week, and it was one of the first social groups Shaheed was able to find in Delaware after moving to the state from Portland, Oregon.
“A lot of her needs are being met during the week,” said Josette Covington, Shaheed’s daughter.
Covington, who works full-time and is Shaheed’s primary caretaker, said the loss of Friday programming will add to her responsibilities, but she is more concerned that it will limit her mother’s social interactions and the effects that could have on her health.
“I wish there was some sort of either community outreach or notification, or some way that I or other people who are affected could help and do what we can to try to keep it open on Fridays,” she said.
Shaheed says she enjoys going to the center to have lunch and to play different games like Bingo.
Shaheed, who was told about the Friday closures less than a week before they began, said she could tell that the organization was facing financial challenges.
Over time, she has noticed fewer seniors come to the center, and other small adjustments, like the increase in lunch costs from $3 to $4 a day, which she said happened within the past few weeks.
Despite the sudden adjustments, Shaheed says she understands why the organization had to make them.
“I really love the center, and I hope it stays open,” she said. “I hope nothing makes it have to close, because it’s a good center to go to, and I really enjoy it.”
