The Princeton Senior Resource Center (PSRC) will announce a change to its name and identity next week.
PSRC Board Chair Joan Girgus and CEO Drew Dyson announced on Dec. 11 that the center would do the name change under a “DBA” (doing business as) to keep the corporate identity as PSRC while they moved forward with the new identity.
The reason for the change is the demographic they serve. PSRC serves older adults ages 55 and up, who essentially do not associate themselves with the word “senior,” therefore, the term “senior center” was not reflective of the community they serve.
More than 80% of funds are privately funded and the center serves older adults from across the Greater Princeton region and also some from Pennsylvania.
“In New Jersey, 98 percent of all senior centers are municipal agencies funded entirely through the municipal budget rather than community nonprofit organizations,” they said.
“While we have an outstanding relationship with the municipality of Princeton, and a contract to provide programs and services to the older adults in Princeton, over 83 percent of our funding comes through our program fees and the generosity of individual donors and corporate/community partners.”
The decision to change the name and identity of PSRC came after more than two years of surveys, stakeholder conversations, and focus groups.
“We engaged with nearly 1,000 older adults, including those currently involved with PSRC and others who had yet to connect,” they said.
In 1978, PSRC was incorporated as a community nonprofit organization, according to the history of the center.
In 2014, they began doing business as (DBA) PSRC.
In November 2021, PSRC cut the ribbon on its new facility at 101 Poor Farm Road. The center named the location the Nancy S. Klath Center for Lifelong Learning, which is 12,000 square feet.
The building, which was renovated and redesigned, has given the organization more space to provide programs to older adults and is also the location for staff offices that have been relocated from the organization’s former headquarters at the Suzanne Patterson Building.
