For nearly a year, a Riverside woman washed her dishes in her bathtub.
Her kitchen plumbing had clogged, and she had no way to fix it. At the same time, she was caring for her husband, who was in hospice care in their living room. She managed both, alone, until she mentioned it to the staff at the Janet Goeske Center. They connected her with someone who cleared the plumbing that same day.
A cleared drain is a small thing. For a woman already carrying that much, it wasn't.
That kind of problem, ordinary, solvable, and quietly crushing to the person living with it, is increasingly what the Janet Goeske Foundation finds itself handling. The Foundation operates the Goeske Center, a senior center on Riverside's east side that serves an average of 400 older adults a day, offering fitness classes, art, lifelong learning, digital literacy courses, intergenerational programs and, as much as anything, a place to spend the day among people.
"We don't want our seniors simply surviving. We want them thriving," says Danielle Stevens, executive director of the Janet Goeske Foundation.
Why it's personal for Stevens
For Stevens, the work traces back to a loss. Her father struggled with depression, and before the family could get him the help he needed, he was killed in a motorcycle accident.
"I couldn't help my dad before we lost him. But I believe God has given me an opportunity to help others," she says. "I love these people, and I won't stop working to make sure our Riverside seniors have the love, support, and services they deserve."
The crises behind the activities
Behind the exercise classes and art tables is a second set of needs that the Center didn't always address directly: food insecurity, housing instability, financial hardship, isolation and a health care system that grows harder to navigate with age.
In March 2024, the Foundation launched a set of crisis prevention services aimed at those problems. Today, Stevens says, more than 150 seniors receive help through them each month: finding housing, navigating Medicare and Social Security, arranging transportation, getting food, and connecting to resources that are hard to reach alone. Through a partnership with Central Counseling Services, seniors can also reach professional mental health support and crisis intervention. In all, the Foundation works with more than 60 organizations to help seniors move through systems that can otherwise feel impossible.
"Nobody should have to age alone or face life's challenges without someone in their corner," Stevens says. "We want every senior to know they're loved, they matter, and we're here to help."
The Center runs on a staff of seven full-time and six part-time employees, more than 250 volunteers and a board of directors. Stevens describes the goal as making the Center a place seniors can treat as a second home.
Growing faster than the room to grow
The Center's challenge now is a good problem to have, and a real one. As Riverside's senior population has grown, demand at the Goeske Center has grown with it, and the building has started to feel the strain.
The Foundation says the Center needs restroom renovations, facility upgrades and roughly 5,000 additional square feet to keep up. Parking is tight most days, with the Center's 200 spaces at or near capacity. Meeting that demand, Stevens says, will take the same thing the Center's daily work takes: a community willing to show up for its older neighbors.
"We have an incredible team that gives so much of themselves to the people we serve," Stevens says. "But we can't do this alone. Our seniors deserve a community that comes together to make sure they have the care, support, and opportunities they need to thrive."
A model worth building on
The Foundation says it hopes the Center can serve as a model for other communities, showing what happens when programs, crisis prevention and essential resources are brought together under one roof for older adults.
The seniors who come through the doors each day, Stevens notes, are the parents, grandparents, veterans, teachers and neighbors who built the Riverside that exists now. Her argument is a simple one: they should get to grow older with dignity, independence and company, and a senior center should be more than a place to go. It should be a place to belong.
The Foundation is asking Riverside to help it keep up — through donations toward the expansion, volunteer hours, or simply spreading the word. For a Center that has become a second home to 400 people a day, that support is what keeps the doors open.
More information: The Janet Goeske Center is operated by the Janet Goeske Foundation, a nonprofit serving Riverside seniors. To learn more about programs, volunteering or supporting the Center's work, contact Executive Director Danielle Stevens at dstevens@jgf4seniors.org or 951-840-3905, or visit jgf4seniors.org.