TUBA CITY, Ariz. – When the $5 million Tuba City Senior Center opens its doors next spring, grandmas and grandpas will finally have a place to eat and enjoy home-cooked meals.
The new senior center, which is funded by the Navajo Nation Sihasin Fund and sales tax collected by Tónaneesdizí Local Government, is about 30% complete. Keyah Construction, Inc., is the construction builder for the project.
Terry McCabe, the center’s supervisor, said she and her staff drive to Cameron Senior Center in Cameron, Ariz., to cook meals and then they drive the meals back to Tuba City to deliver to elders in the community.
McCabe cannot wait for the new senior center to open with a full kitchen and office space and calls the project a “godsend” by Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.
“My elders can come in and sit down,” McCabe said. “They come in every day to look at the building, saying, ‘It is going up,’ They’re excited that it’s finally becoming a reality.”
More than ten years ago, the old senior center was condemned. By 2016, the senior center operated out of a modular building. Today, it only has office space but no kitchen.
The kitchen is very important to McCabe and her staff because it would bring the elderly into their facility for social connections and bonding.
Last week, President Nygren visited the construction site for a status update.
“The minute they secured the funds, they started construction,” President Nygren said while praising the leadership of the Tónaneesdizí Local Government.
Since his tenure as chief commercial officer of the Navajo Engineering and Construction Authority, President Nygren kept his pulse on this project. Through his campaign and election victory to tribal president, he has since made this construction project a priority.
Then as president, with access to tribal funding mechanisms, he ensured the groundbreaking for construction began in February 2024.
Duran Begay, chapter manager for Tónaneesdizí Local Government, said that the new senior center will provide a vital support system for the community’s elderly.
“It’s a gathering place where they can socialize –– something that has not happened in years,” Begay said. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Begay noted that $370,000 in local sales tax collected by the chapter contributed to the project.
For McCabe, the new center represents the completion of work that honors the elderly who have since passed and advocated for a senior center in the first place. She looks forward to the project’s completion in spring 2025.
“Like many senior centers, we are open to serving other elderly visitors from other areas as well,” McCabe said. “If they need to go to the hospital for an appointment, they’ll have a place to gather here.”
