Jasmine Corchado Comes Home to the Older Adult Center
By Barbara Kancelbaum
Jasmine Corchado, second from left, has been the director of Henry Street’s Older Adult Center since 2022, but her connection to the Settlement goes back to her childhood.
While Jasmine Corchado, was growing up in the Vladeck Houses, it was a place of family, unity, and laughter, she says. “You knew when the lights started flickering on the poles, it was time to go home,” she says. “It was a safe place. All the doors were open. We went to neighbors’ houses.”
At 48, Jasmine finds herself back home, as the program director of Henry Street’s Older Adult Center, after a career deeply influenced by the Settlement.
Jasmine’s first job was with Henry Street at age 14, working at the headquarters for two years through the Summer Youth Employment Program. Another teenage year was spent working at a summer program that Henry Street ran on Avenue D and Third Street, and at 18 she studied for her GED at the Settlement. Her earliest encounter with the organization was in elementary school when her class from P.S. 134 visited Abrons Arts Center for a clay workshop. “That was cool and fun, you were able to get out of school and see things you usually wouldn’t see coming from a low-income family background.” In sixth grade, her class created and performed a play about Lillian Wald at 265 Henry Street.
When the youngest of Jasmine’s three children was starting school, she found a job as an administrative assistant with the Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC). Soon, her colleagues were asking her to jump in and help the members, until Janet Fischer, Henry Street’s longtime NORC manager invited her to become a case manager, which she did for 12 years. “That’s where it all started—my love for the seniors and respect for them. You learn so much from them; they’ve lived life longer than we have. It’s been a blessing.”
Jasmine, second from right, worked for the Vladeck Cares NORC at Henry Street for 12 years.
Jasmine’s aunt and uncle both worked in the Senior Center. In the early 1980s, while Jasmine’s mother had a stay in the hospital, her uncle picked her up from school and took her to the center after school. “I remember as a six-year-old, running through the Senior Center, which now I run,” she says.
Jasmine left Henry Street for seven years, for a corporate job. But during the pandemic, she became aware of the profound needs of older adults in the community. When a former colleague told her about the director job at the newly renamed Older Adult Center, she says, “I decided to come back to where I came from.”
Her first challenge was bringing older adults back to the center amid the fear and isolation of Covid-19. The center had to come up with different ways of doing things; there were no parties at first. But once people saw that someone from the community was there consistently every day, it made it easier for them to trust that it was safe.
Today, nearly 200 people come to the center each day. Jasmine is in charge of a multipronged operation with a full industrial kitchen serving lunch and dinner daily. The activities never stop, with Bingo, dancing, karaoke, or calligraphy in the front room; pool tables, dominoes, and ping pong in the back, plus frequent field trips.
Taking care of her elders is second nature to Jasmine, who helped her single mother care for her great-grandmother who lived to 104, later for a grandmother who had Alzheimer’s, and now for the uncle who brought her to the center so long ago.
Although the center’s members include those in their 90s, there is a new, younger crop of participants. “This generation of seniors loves to party, they love to dance,” Jasmine says. “This is a place where you can just express yourself, you can be yourself, and there’s no judgment.” She adds that it is also very multicultural, and the team tries to celebrate the backgrounds and traditions of its members.
This past summer, Jasmine was honored with a proclamation from New York City Councilmember Christopher Marte in recognition of her dedication to the Lower East Side and its older residents.
Aside from all the fun, the center plays an important role in members’ health and well-being, often addressing their experiences of sadness. If someone hasn’t come for a few days, the team checks on them.
Many participants have lost spouses, friends, and even their children. “You hear a lot of, ‘My kids don’t call me, my kids don’t come around,’” Jasmine says. Her staff makes a concerted effort to fill those gaps in people’s lives.
A new member came up to Jasmine recently and said, “I want to thank you…for how you run this place.” She had lost her husband a year earlier and had been in a very deep depression. Convinced to try the Older Adult Center, she is now dancing and has met friends she meets on the weekend. “Those are the stories I leave with a sense of satisfaction,” Jasmine says.
Jasmine credits NORC social worker Martha Nieves, former head of senior services Janet Fischer, and current Vice President of Older Adult Services Cindy Singh as her largest influences. “Martha taught me everything I know about seniors. I still reach out to her for advice,” Jasmine says.
Living in the community with her Older Adult Center members means that Jasmine’s work never ends. ““The work here is amazing. You go home with a sense of, wow, I helped somebody today, I made a senior smile. I can honestly tell you that I love what I do.”
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