Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan preserves Waterford adult day program

Encore Adult Day Care has been a pillar in the senior community for 40 years; local residents glad to see program continue

WATERFORD TOWNSHIP — Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan’s acquisition of the Encore Adult Day Program was a moment of relief for the Waterford Township community.

For Erin Asdell, senior coordinator of the Encore program at the Waterford Senior Center, it’s also a full-circle moment.

Before Asdell began her 30 years at Encore, she worked for Catholic Social Services — the precursor to Catholic Charities — caring for older seniors.

Now, Encore will be part of Catholic Charities in Southeast Michigan after coming into an agreement with Waterford Township, whose Parks and Recreation Department initially announced its closure before Catholic Charities stepped in.

“I came to the Waterford Senior Center from what was called Catholic Social Services, where I worked in their senior companion program,” Asdell told Detroit Catholic. “They were moving all their programs to Southfield, and I’m a Waterford person. I was very active with the Waterford Senior Center, having worked in an older adult program anyway, so they asked me to come on over.”

Thirty years later, Asdell is back with the Catholic Charities, which reached an agreement to take over Encore from Waterford Township and its recreation department, which itself took over the program from Waterford Public Schools on Jan. 1, 2025.

Waterford Public Schools ran Encore for 40 years as a place for older adults to go for community and fellowship while offering their caregivers a needed break.

When the township announced it was going to close Encore, Asdell said the community was disappointed.

“Parks and Recreation was just having a hard time with the program because it’s not something they usually do,” Asdell said. “The community was just really devastated, and the reaction was a lot of people not knowing what they were going to do.”

That’s when Catholic Charities stepped in.

“When we heard about the closure of the Waterford Encore program, we started getting calls from people over there asking about our program at Sacred Heart Parish in Auburn Hills,” said Paul Propson, CEO of Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan.

Propson said Catholic Charities was considering different options for the future of its Auburn Hills program, and saw a unique opportunity in Waterford.

Catholic Charities, which also operates a day program out of St. Lucy Parish in St. Clair Shores, reached out to Waterford Township about acquiring the Encore program and shifting its Sacred Heart program to the Waterford Senior Center.

“We went to visit the senior center, seeing how this was clearly a crisis for the community and those who valued this program,” Propson said. “We heard from the community how much this program helps adults with employment and seniors, and the caregivers who rely on this program to give them a little respite.”

Propson said the clients Catholic Charities was serving at Sacred Heart will now be served at the already existing community in Encore, creating a larger cohort and a more robust community for the seniors served at both locations.

“We are looking at this move as creating a more robust, larger Encore program that can better serve our clients,” Propson said. “We have a contract with SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation), so we’re able to pick people up at their home and bring them to Waterford and drop them off at the end of the day.”

Long term, Waterford Township will move its senior center location in the next two to three years, and the new location won't have room for the Encore program, so Propson said Catholic Charities is appealing to the community for support.

Catholic Charities is in the process of raising funds to help cover the cost of transitioning the program, including staff retraining and with the hope of building a financial cushion to cover operating costs.

"In this transition, there are some real costs and challenges, so we're inviting people to make a gift to the Encore program to establish a strong first year as we look ahead to long-term planning," Propson said. "We know we will have to move the Encore program since we won't be able to stay at the new Waterford Senior Center, so we are looking to use these funds to establish a new location when the time comes."

Adult day programs provide a wide range of activities, exercises, meals and community-building moments for seniors, Asdell said.

Asdell explained that some participants require assistance with mobility and feeding themselves, which is where staff and volunteers come in.

“Most of our participants with very little assistance can feed themselves, but we do have some people who have been in our program for maybe eight years and are advanced in their cognitive development and require more assistance,” Asdell said. “But in addition to providing the caregiver a break, we’re able to tell family members, ‘Gosh, your mom had a good appetite today,’ or ‘This is not normal for her; she didn’t eat so well.'

“We’re good eyes and ears for a family caregiver, and if their loved one did anything different throughout the day, we report back to them,” Asdell added.

Now with Encore under the Catholic Charities umbrella, Asdell expects the program to continue to improve.

“The goal of an adult day program is to provide that safe network for seniors and their families, and Catholic Charities really does this with their staff and how we interact with our programming, treating people as individuals and being there for them in whatever they need,” Asdell said.

“If you have a loved one with dementia or a severe impairment, someone who’s socially isolated or maybe depressed in that environment, you know how important it is for a family to trust someone to take care of them as we get them out of the house, even if it’s only for a little while,” Asdell added. “It’s care for the participant and care for their family.”

During a June 9 Waterford Township Board of Trustees meeting, Propson said Catholic Charities heard from many residents about the importance of the Encore program for the area’s seniors and their families.

“They spoke about their loved ones who are part of the Encore community and are friends with the people who go there and work there,” Propson said. “They spoke about how much activity and physical exercise they get, about their mental challenges from the games they play and all their friends who are there.

“The Encore program is a link to a joy-filled life for the person who participates, and many of them remember — before they found Encore — how isolated they were and how unhealthy that isolation was for the person,” Propson said.