SISTERS — About 60 seniors gather on Tuesdays at the Sisters Community Church for a meal, some talk and maybe a game of bingo. But they want a place to call home.

Sisters seniors are studying the idea of building a senior center.

The city is the only area lunch site run by Central Oregon Council on Aging that isn’t held at a senior center. Instead, the program, which also brings services such as blood pressure or foot care clinics, has spent the last 12 years meeting in various churches.

The lunch get-together lasts about four hours, long enough for seniors to eat and play a game of bingo, but not long enough to really relax.

Some, like 81-year-old Roy Anderson, say they want their own space.

Anderson and his wife, Shirley, 80, have been coming to the luncheon, which costs about $5, almost every Tuesday for the past six years.

“There is quite a bit of social interaction,” he said of the group of regulars who attend every week. “We really enjoy seeing everyone.”

COCOA lunch coordinator Lisa Fetrow says she thinks many Sisters seniors would stay longer if it was an option.

“I think they’d all like to be able to have their own place,” she said. “It’s hard because we all know we need to be out by a certain time.”

For 70-year-old Howard den Hartog, a senior center would provide a place not only for sen-iors to meet for meals but to participate in exercise and extended education classes.

Den Hartog is a member of the steering committee that commissioned Scott Aycock, a program administrator for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, to conduct the study.

“We’ve gone around and looked at other facilities in the area,” den Hartog said. “It seems as if everyone has a place but us. We really liked what we saw.”

The steering committee currently includes seven members from COCOA, Sisters City Council, Senior Council of Sisters, and Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation (SOAR). They plan to meet once a month to discuss Aycock’s study, which he says will include two phases.

First, he plans to conduct a needs assessment through surveys, focus groups and meetings with agencies that serve seniors. After reviewing responses, the committee plans to design an operations plan — identifying promising locations, and ownership and operating models.

Results should be available in January or February. When the committee releases the results, they plan to start securing funds to design and build the center.

Den Hartog says he hopes the building could also be used for community events.

“Other than the FivePine Campus, we really don’t have any place in Sisters where people could hold a Christmas party or get together in a big group,” he said, noting that other local senior facilities rent space in their buildings as events centers. “I think this is something that could really serve the whole community.”

IF YOU GO

What: Senior Council of Sisters meeting regarding a proposed senior center

Where: Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation building, 1750 W. McKinney Butte Drive

When: 3:30-5 p.m., second Thursday of every month

Contact: Call Howard den Hartog, 549-8083; or Scott Aycock, 548-9525.