Greenville pastor dedicated to helping seniors get more out of life

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    GREENVILLE — When federal and state program cuts threatened the twice-weekly meal programs at the Dean Park senior citizens complex in Greenville, Dr. Robert Veon decided to take action.

Observer photo/Mike Lange

    DEDICATED SERVANT — As a board member of the Eastern Area Agency on Aging and pastor of the Union Evangelical Churches of Greenville and Rockwood, Dr. Robert L. Veon helped save twice-weekly senior citizen meal programs threatened by federal and state budget cuts.

    As a board member of the Eastern Area Agency on Aging and pastor of the Union Evangelical Churches of Greenville and Rockwood, Veon was well aware of the challenges already facing those in their “golden years.”
    “Older citizens not only need a place to get a balanced, nutritious meal but also company and fellowship,” said Veon. “Many who live alone often withdraw and lose the meaning out of life. In some cases, these meals are their only social gathering.”
    So two years ago, the Greenville church conducted a fundraiser from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day to raise money to keep the meal program alive. The Rockwood church also participated, but started and ended later because it doesn’t open until Memorial Day weekend. “We sold paper plates for $5 each, each representing a meal. Many bought them in honor of their parents or their spouses,” Veon said.
    Veon’s goal was to raise $1,000, which was the minimum EAAA said was needed to keep the meal program at Dean Park for a year. “We’ve raised $1,500 each year,” he said.
    Dr. Veon, 78, moved to Maine several years ago with the intention of retiring. But he’s far from it, even though a nagging hip ailment has slowed him down physically. “I was athletic director at Greenville High School for a few years,” Veon recalled. “I used to run up and down stairs all the time, retrieving balls and uniforms.”
    In addition to pastoring two churches, Veon is an adjunct at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield where he teaches a course on “Mental Health and Aging.” He’s taught as many as six courses during the fall semester, but scales back to one or two in the summer.
    He and his wife, Susan, live in Elliottsville Plantation but are now renting a house in Plymouth to ease commuting distances. Susan Veon teaches special education summer classes at Carmel Elementary School.
    Last year, he was honored by the Presbytery of Southern New England for 50 years of service in the gospel ministry. He earned his doctorate of ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1996.
    The pastor’s other major undertaking is the Senior Center for Enrichment which he started recently at the Greenville church. Veon’s goal is to offer programs for seniors “that keep their brains more active, not just a place to come once a week and play cards.” Veon envisions guest speakers like attorneys, accountants and financial advisers addressing the center, and more field trips to cultural events in Bangor and Lakewood Theater in Madison.
    “This fits into the whole mental health and aging program,” he explained.
    This year, the EAAA Board of Directors has also asked Dr. Veon to make a presentation on “The Meaning and Fulfillment of Life for Aging Members of our Families and Communities.” This month, he’s using “The Joy of Old Age” by Oliver Sacks as his reference.
    Sacks, who just turned 80, wrote that he did not think of old age “as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.”
    Demographically, Maine and the nation are aging, Veon notes. “With all these baby boomers reaching retirement age, it will be a challenge to find programs to keep them socially and mentally active,” he said. “The Senior Center for Enrichment is an important first step. I’m really looking forward to getting the community involved.”
    For more information, visit www.unionchurchmoosehead.org and www.eaaa.org.