Nine months after Monson sustained severe damage from a tornado, the town’s Council on Aging director and other volunteers were raising money to assist another tornado-stricken community roughly 1,000 miles away.

Harrisburg, Ill., a city of about 9,500 near the state’s southern tip, was among several communities in the Midwest and South that were ravaged by tornadoes at the end of February.

“I happened to be online one day, and I saw the news that the senior center in Harrisburg had been destroyed,” said Monson Council on Aging Director Lori Stacy. “It struck a nerve. Although we didn’t lose our senior center, we had to be out of the building for several weeks.

“I could relate, as well, to their concern of ‘How are we going to feed our home-bound people?’” Stacy added.

In Harrisburg, the Golden Circle Senior Center is funded by county government and had a broader scope than Monson’s, serving about 125 home-bound people in and around the city. In the first few days after the tornado, Monson seniors sent a total of $300 to assist the home-bound who would normally be served by Golden Circle.

“This is the seniors helping the seniors,” Stacy said. “That’s what we’re calling the program.”

Non-seniors in Monson also are contributing. A Monson resident who organizes an annual “tea cup auction” at the senior center will donate this year’s proceeds to Golden Circle, according to Stacy.

Volunteers in Monson also coordinated the collection and shipment of items to Harrisburg such as tarps, work gloves, dust masks, Tupperware containers, and energy bars.

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