Park City senior center honors volunteers for keeping daily life running

At the Park City Senior Center, the applause on Volunteer Appreciation Day was really for the labor that keeps the building moving. Volunteers were honored June 12 with high tea, singing by Kate Chanson, remarks from Mayor Ryan Dickey and an awards ceremony, but the bigger story was how deeply the center depends on people who show up to serve meals, clean up, move equipment and keep daily operations on track.

That matters because the senior center is not a side program. Its mission is to allow people over 60 to live their best lives, and Summit County describes its senior centers in Park City, Coalville and Kamas as places that offer meals, games, transportation help, group lunches and volunteer opportunities. The Park City center said it had more than 700 members in 2026, a size that makes dependable volunteer labor part of the center’s basic capacity, not an extra perk.

Nick Calas has become one of the most visible examples of that system at work. Calas, who has lived in Park City since 1982 and spent 32 years with Park City Municipal recreation, helps raise and lower the flag, serves food, cleans up and lifts heavy items at the senior center. He also volunteers with a backup weather station for NOAA. Cheryl Soshnik, vice president of the board, points to Calas as the kind of volunteer the center leans on: active, upbeat and still eager to contribute.

The center’s volunteer culture is doing more than staffing special events. Board members handle formal business, while regular members organize knitting groups, solve technology problems and help clean up after gatherings. That kind of behind-the-scenes work allows the center to function as a daily service hub for older residents across Summit County, rather than only as a place for social visits.

The city has already helped reinforce that infrastructure. Park City provided funds from 2022 to 2025 for a half-time employee to schedule activities and promote the center, a sign that even paid support has been used to extend the center’s reach. Leaders are also planning for a larger future: the center said it was finalizing plans for a new senior center and senior affordable housing adjacent to the current building.

That long runway reaches back decades. The senior center says it has a 45-year history, and founding member Otto Carpenter captured the stakes in 1976 when he told the city council, “It is a road you’ll have to walk some day.” With strategic plan input sessions held June 17 and June 19, the center’s next phase is already being shaped around the same idea that has kept it going for years: in Park City, volunteerism is not ceremonial. It is the operating system.