After an hour-long lunch at the Senior Center at Cascades Friday, May 18, Sterling resident Sushil Bansal headed to a small room off the main lobby filled with a treadmill, elliptical machine and other exercise equipment. Bansal joined three other women dressed in collared blouses and colored slacks in an afternoon workout.
"I love coming here because all of my friends are here," Bansal said. "There are so many nice people here. They feel like family. It feels like home in here."
Bansal is one of 1,500 senior citizens who belong to the Senior Center at Cascades.
Donna Renner, manager of the Senior Center at Cascades, said she has seen an increased number of senior citizens in the facility compared to last year.
"Seniors are living longer and this is an attractive place for them to be," Renner said.
Approximately 167 senior citizens visit the Sterling senior center everyday, Renner said. Last year, the senior center saw an average of 111 persons a day.
"There’s a lot going on here. We have a number of activities that go on everyday and we go on a number of trips," she said.
Bansal and her husband socialize, eat lunch and exercise there at least five times a week.
"Each and every member of this senior center is just like a family," she said. "We come from all over, but we have a lot in common. People come to me with problems. We fix them."
BANSAL MOVED from Alexandria to Loudoun County five years ago to give her granddaughter, who she was raising, a better education, she said. Before that, Bansal lived in her home country, India.
"Now she is a student at Virginia Tech," she said, "but we like it here."
Bansal said she likes her life in Sterling because she can walk to the grocery store and other shops in the shopping center near her home. She also likes to walk to the restaurants there.
The majority of the 60-, 70-, and 80-year-olds that make up the Senior Center at Cascades moved to Loudoun County from other parts of the country. Some have moved to the area from other parts of the world.
"We have 80 countries represented here and 80 different languages," Renner said.
The Senior Center at Cascades is so diverse, Renner said, because there are so many employment opportunities in the area. A lot of the senior citizens who belong to the Sterling-area center relocated to the area to be closer to their children.
The county’s job market and the school system attract the children of senior citizens.
"They come here for their children," she said. "They stay because there’s a lot going on here for seniors. There are so many opportunities for their families."
SENIOR CITIZENS are an asset to any community, Renner said, because of their expendable income.
They’re bringing their life savings and social security checks, she said, and possibly money from a home they sold before they relocated to the area.
"Loudoun is an attractive place to live, raise a family and retire because of all of the opportunities there are in the area," Renner said.