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Rodney Smoker, director of operations for the center on Brackbill Road in Salisbury Township, said the day care for people age 60 and over quit operating June 30 because of a lack of use.
"Financially, it didn't make sense for us, and, demographically, we found that the people in our area — in the Amish and Mennonite tradition — tend to take care of their elderly family members on their own," Smoker said.
Jacqueline Burch, director of the county's Office of Aging, said the Family Center of Gap filled a critical void in the county's network of adult day-care facilities and that the directors didn't give the center enough time to catch on.
"We needed that coverage in that geographic area," Burch said, noting that the closest such facility to Gap is in New Holland.
"Our experience has been that sometimes it takes a year or two or more until you can get kind of a stable base," she later added. "If you're able to get past that tough opening year, generally things tend to pick up."
Co-founded by Jonas Beiler and his wife, Anne Beiler, who founded Auntie Anne's Inc., Family Center of Gap opened last September as a single-destination provider of a host of family services.
The center is home to Family Resource and Counseling Centers, which was founded by Jonas Beiler; Cornerstone Pregnancy Care Services, a faith-based crisis pregnancy center; and Tree of Life Health Ministries, a naturopathic health center.
It also houses a branch of the Pequea Valley Public Library.
The adult day-care center was licensed by the state Department of Aging, according to Burch.
Under that license, she said, the facility had to maintain certain levels of staffing and medical equipment.
Those requirements, she said, likely created a financial burden for the center.
"I think they were struggling to get enough people to pay for the staffing ratio and the overhead costs that you need to have the place operate," she said.
Smoker said the center had five senior citizens who required constant care for medical or mental health reasons registered as clients.
"Some of those were only here for a half-day, one day a week," he said. "So we were not using the center all day every day."
Of those five clients, two were sent through the Office of Aging, Burch said.
That meant the agency helped pay the day-care costs for those clients.
The Family Center "went through a lot of time, trouble and expense to get that (state) license, and we were glad that they did," Burch said. "We are always glad to have partners like that because we couldn't afford to start (an adult day-care center) up on our own."
Hildebrandt Learning Centers operated the adult day-care facility for the family center. Hildebrandt also operates the facility's Early Learning Center and will continue to run that service, Smoker said.
Earlier this year, the Family Center's board of directors met with Hildebrandt officials to talk about the low number of seniors using the adult day-care service, according to Smoker.
"It was mutually decided that the best thing to do was for us to stop the day-care service," he said.
With the closing of the Family Center's day-care operation, Burch said, seniors in eastern Lancaster County who need that service will be sent to Garden Spot Village in New Holland.
E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com
