Those who enter the Vashon Senior Center can do so more easily, now that the Vashon Island Rotary Club has completed a year’s worth of work on the historic brick building on the western edge of Vashon Town.

A new automatic glass door was one of several projects 15 or so members from the club completed last week. The club also built a shelving system in the storeroom, installed 10 new double-pane windows and — with rebates from the energy-saving windows — purchased a new freezer and shelving system for the kitchen, said John Moore, a Rotarian who helped to oversee the effort.

The club also painted all the wood work on the exterior of the building.

Half the money came from the local club, with another half from the Rotary’s district office. The project represents its most significant community ser-

vice effort of the year, Moore said.

On Monday, a few days after the club held its weekly morning breakfast at the Senior Center, which several members of the district office attended, Moore said he felt particularly pleased about the new door.

A retired occupational therapist, Moore saw the old door — one made of solid wood and that opened out — as a potential hazard.

“I was just waiting for someone to get bowled over,” he said.

The new door is particularly helpful to those who use wheelchairs or canes, he noted.

Frances Eikenberry, a

senior center member, agreed.

“It’s so much easier,” she said as she got a push in her wheelchair Monday.

Contact Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber Editor Leslie Brown at editor@vashonbeachcomber.com or 1-206-463-9195.

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