Every day, for six years, Ed visited his wife at an Omaha home for Alzheimer's patients. Every day, he fed her lunch and dinner. When she died, he thought he didn't have anywhere to turn.

“He was very, very connected with his wife,” says Karen Sides, the director of the Senior Center located on the lower level of the Heartland Family Service building. “And when she passed away, Ed lost contact with any friends he did have.”

In his loneliness and grief, 87-year-old Ed was reluctant to come to the Senior Center, not too far from his South Omaha home where he has lived for 52 years. Senior centers are only for women, he thought, believing he wouldn’t find much to interest him.

But once he was convinced to give the Senior Center a try, Ed found a new life–a group of similarly situated men with whom he could swap tales and share friendships.

When he first started coming to the center, he was depressed and quiet. Now, he’s upbeat and talkative, sharing a routine of jokes and stories, including tales from when he was a semiprofessional baseball player more than 60 years ago.

“I came here where I found a place where people will laugh at my jokes, and I can tell the stories I know I’ve told over and over again,” Ed says with his typical humor.

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each Monday through Friday, an average of 50 men and women from Midtown Omaha–generally from their late 60s to late 80s–visit the Senior Center for conversation, activities and a nutritious, low-cost lunch.

The chit-chat and friendship is the draw, but the Senior Center provides much more: speakers on topics such as nutrition, physical therapy and legal issues; activities such as crafts and the Chinese exercise of Tai Chi; entertainment such as bingo and sing-alongs.

“We look for things to keep them energized,” Sides says. “We tell them that your only alternative is to move forward. Things don’t have to be tough late in life.”

Ed has become an attraction for other men who visit the Senior Center. Because of his personality, men who initially came to the Senior Center unwillingly now come nearly every day.

They gather at the center’s main table that seats 12–usually all men “except for a couple of spots where they let women squeeze in,” Sides jokes.

Oftentimes, Senior Center visitors volunteer to help around the facility, washing dishes, cleaning up or other tasks. Ed isn’t able to help out; he uses his cane to get around and can’t see well enough to do tasks or even play cards.

But Ed does not let his limitations slow him down. This year, he even attended the Senior Prom organized each spring by the Junior Friends of Heartland Family Service. He couldn’t dance, but he talked at length with Junior Friends members–a new audience for his jokes and stories.

Ed’s volunteerism isn’t about tasks. Instead, Sides says, his gift is the love and laughter he brings to his buddies.

“We know the Senior Center enhances Ed’s life, because his family tells use how happy he is to be here.” Sides says. “They are delighted that he has some place to go.”