New Prime Time Seniors Director Alesha Williams: Supporting EL Seniors is “My Joy”

Alesha Williams has worked in healthcare since she was 14.

“I started off as a candy striper at a hospital and then worked at a convent nursing home in Indiana,” she said, sitting behind her largely unfurnished desk at the Hannah Community Center. 

The Terre Haute-area native became the director of East Lansing’s Prime Time Seniors (PTS) program in February. ELi spoke with Williams to learn about her goals for the program and what brought her to seek out her new position.

Williams spoke about how early experiences forged her trajectory.

“That is actually where I learned about recreation therapy and activities in those environments and how important they are,” Williams said. “I worked in psych for a little while, but older adults are my area. I like them. I love working with them. I love what they have to offer to the community and getting them excited about something is just hands down, my joy.”

PTS creates enrichment experiences for those 55 and older. The program was founded, according to Williams, in 1972 as a partnership between the city and the East Lansing Public School District. Before moving to its current home at Hannah Community Center, the program was run out of Red Cedar Elementary School.

In the five decades since, the program has designed experiences that reflect the interests of participating seniors.  This spring, there have been sessions to play euchre and canasta, Japanese language classes, a book club, and a variety of art classes that have ranged from colored pencil drawing to wood carving.

“I think that they are a population that is definitely underutilized,” Williams said, speaking of the seniors she serves. “They have life experience to offer and giving them opportunities for mentorships, intergenerational engagement [is good]… I know that a lot of what I’ve encountered in older adults is this idea of ‘Well, I retire and I’m just going to sit around.’ One of the leads that I give a lot of people is, ‘When you were working, what did you wish you had time to do? Was it travel? Was it to learn how to woodwork?’ I have a whole list of things I wish I had time to learn and do. I’m not sure why society, they look at them and say, they lived long, they’re good, they don’t need us, they don’t need these services. It’s the exact opposite of what I feel and I believe that there are a lot of cultures that recognize the importance of their elder population. In some cultures, they are worshiped. I do wish that we as a society had more of a positive outlook on what they have to offer.”

Before starting as PTS director, Williams spent more than a decade working at Burcham Hills Retirement Community. 

“It was a really hard decision [to leave Burcham],” she said. “I was loved and I loved them. I still go back and visit. I kind of wanted to do it over again, I guess, [is] the easiest way to say it. I had built the program. I was there for 11 years and that program looks nothing like it did when I got there. The right people were in place to keep it going. But being able to have a wider reach…you know, at Burcham, my reach was the 350 or so people that lived there. Now my reach is 3,000 people. Being able to have an impact on a wider population is really appealing to me. The more people I can help, the more accomplished I feel.”

PTS is still working to spring back from the pandemic. Williams cites activities like quarterly luncheons and larger outings that she hopes to reintegrate.

“Already here [is] a lot of fitness [classes] and varying levels,” she said. “We utilize the pool on a daily basis for aqua fitness. We have everyone from chair yoga to a strength and balance class.

“Ukulele is huge; there’s been a big upward trend in participation there.”

Judith Bridger has lived in East Lansing since 1985 and has participated in PTS programming for the last seven years. Her involvement has been with the theater-centered Behind the Scenes group within PTS.

“We learn about the plays the students put on,” she told ELi. “We just see MSU productions. We meet on the Thursday before the show opens. Dr. Dan Smith from the MSU Theatre Department comes and gives us a preview of what to see. We sign a paper that says which date we want to go see the play and then pick up our tickets at the Wharton Center’s will call window. 

“Then we meet again on the Thursday after the show opens and sit down with a student. They might be a tech or actor or some other role, and they talk us through the play from their eyes.”

Between 12 and 20 seniors participate each session, Bridger said.

“We just saw Spring Awakening [at the Wharton Center] and it’s the best show I’ve seen there,” she added.

There are other partnerships the seniors have helped build for their community. International students from Michigan State University visit frequently with senior groups. Volunteer PTS members also assist local nonprofit organizations like Helping Women Period.

Williams will continue to develop new programming that supports more sections of East Lansing’s senior population. 

“As far as the new stuff we’re looking at bringing in,” Williams said, “I’m huge into the LGBTQ population and supporting the seniors in that community. I’m not seeing a lot in the area for them. I’m starting small. Starting in June, we’re going to have a weekly coffee hour for that community and we’re going to hopefully grow from there.”

Williams sees the local group of LGBTQ seniors as an untapped facet of the community she serves, acknowledging the unique connection she possesses. 

“I think they are underserved, but also, they have unique needs within the population,” she said. “So many of them in this current generation didn’t have children. They are relying on extended family for some of those care needs. They lost networks through the years. So many of them have felt like they had to be closeted and I’m proud of where our society is going where that is no longer the case for the most part. I do have two moms so it is very personal to me. 

“I want everyone to feel welcome coming to the Hannah Center.  I want everyone to feel like they are celebrated when they walk through that door.”

Williams wants the area’s seniors to know that she wants to hear from them about their interests and how she can better support them.

“I think I’m a pretty good listener,” she said. “I have always followed an open door policy.

“So far, I’ve been trying really hard to pop into all of the classes,” Williams said. “I think I’ve hit about 70% of them. I’ve been taking up offers of going to lunch with groups that regularly meet and just taking notes on everything they have to say and bringing it back to the office. There’s a collaborative effort right now with age-friendly communities and [the] seniors commission and Prime Time to do a survey to really see how to serve [the seniors of this area].”

Williams is also eager to get more support and engagement from the wider community.

“Donations and volunteers are always welcomed,” she said, “as well as ideas and a willingness to support those ideas, sharing skills. If someone out there has a skill that they want to share, chances are someone else wants to learn about it. One of the classes we just finished up was Ukrainian egg-dying. That is not a skill that everybody has. And I sat in on that one, that was so cool. People willing to share information, my door is open to them.”

Over the last year, Williams said that 550 area seniors participated in PTS programming. But she hopes to continue to expand the program’s reach. 

“There are scholarships available for East Lansing seniors who want to participate in Prime Time Seniors but find themselves with tighter finances,” she said. “My door really is open to all our seniors. I want to hear from all 3,000 of them.”