The question often comes up, “How did the Williams Adult Day Center get started?” The answer is a story that spans fifty years with many different chapters. 

It all began during the 1960s and 1970s, a time of significant social and political change. This era was seen as a time when society began to focus more on collective responsibility and interconnectedness. In 1965, Harvey Cox, a theologian at Harvard Divinity School, published his influential book The Secular City, which encouraged churches to look beyond their own institutions and address the social and economic challenges facing underserved urban communities. Cox argued that the church should be a community of action and faith, not just an institution. 

According to Paul McCraw (local historian for the First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem), Harvey Cox visited Winston-Salem in the 1970s and remarked that this city was best equipped to form urban ministries to deal with issues related to poverty, inequality, and social injustice. Several Forsyth County churches answered that call to action and formed the Downtown Church Center to welcome urban citizens of all ages to various events and activities designed to create community and share ways to improve their lives. The Downtown Church Center, located in an old house in the West End, was sponsored by First Baptist Church (5th Street), Centenary United Methodist, Augsburg Lutheran Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and First Presbyterian Church. This center offered community meals, dances, and general fellowship one Saturday night each month, with volunteers from each church rotating responsibilities for food and activities.  

 Through this outreach effort came an acute awareness that the older urban population needed special attention. To meet that need, Downtown Church Center, Parkway United Church of Christ, and The Experimental Church (sponsored by First Presbyterian) formed Creative Life Centers, Inc. in 1974 to enrich the lives of older adults, promote their independence, and prevent inappropriate institutionalization. 

The mission from the beginning was to reduce social isolation, stimulate interest in leisure activities, provide instruction and consumer protection information, and improve the health status of participants by helping them to engage effectively with their health providers. From the beginning, program facilitators were aware of the many challenges participants faced, including physical impairment, need for personal care, mental confusion, reduced mobility, need for supervision, and self-neglect.

By 1982, the CLC, then located at 623 North Patterson Avenue, had increased its service programs to include Meals-on-Wheels, Adult Activity, and Home Care services. Although it is believed the term “memory care” has been used since the 13th century, it wasn’t until the mid-20th century, well after Dr. Alois Alzheimer’s brain studies (1906), that a greater understanding of dementia and its effect on individuals and their caregivers brought about the development of a specialized care model.  

In 1984, The Creative Life Centers changed its name to Senior Services, Inc., even as they saw the growing need for adult day care programs and to offer a blueprint for expanding such care in Forsyth County. With that goal in mind, Senior Services applied for and received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Dementia Care and Respite Services Program, to open The Alzheimer’s Center, located at 1995-A Stratford at Griffith Roads in Winston-Salem, in 1989.  

As applications to The Alzheimer’s Center increased exponentially, it became apparent that this center was too small to meet the needs of the number of older adults needing its specialized care. In 1998, Senior Services announced a capital campaign called “A Blueprint for Dignity” to build a new 11,300 square foot “Adult Day Care/Alzheimer’s Center” at 231 Melrose Street, near North Carolina Baptist Hospital (now Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center).

Baptist Hospital’s partnership with Senior Services included a 30-year lease of the land at $1 per year, and that proximity created opportunities for collaboration in patient care, research, and teaching. Participant services expanded to include occupational, speech, and physical therapies, personal care (hair, nails, incontinence), and provide secure accommodations for participants who may wander or become agitated, all in a comfortable home-like environment.

In 2010, the National Adult Day Services Association named the Williams Adult Day Center as the Best Adult Daycare Center in the U.S.  This was an amazing accolade, shining a deserved light on its staff, programs, and facility, and marking the Williams Center as a valuable resource for other agencies around the country to study and emulate.

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The Next Big Move: Williams Center Relocates to the Intergenerational Center for Arts and Wellness  

Given the ever-expanding need for supportive services to older adults living with frailty and/or dementia, the Williams Adult Day Center needed to continue its growth. Senior Services Creative Connections Campaign, launched in July of 2021, creating that opportunity – bringing to life a bold, innovative, and ultimately multi-award-winning vision to build the Intergenerational Center for Arts and Wellness (Generations Center) which has become the new home of the Williams Adult Day Center among many other dedicated and shared space partners and organizations.

In fact, in September of 2024, the Williams Center received the National Adult Day Services Association’s Center of Distinction award—naming it the best in the country—for the second time!  

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We celebrate, with pride, the successes of the Williams Center and would like you to join us!  Please watch this space for personal stories from past and present Williams Center staff, volunteers, participants, and their families, and click here for more information on what we are doing to highlight and celebrate fifty years of care and support provided by the Elizabeth and Tab Williams Adult Day Center throughout the year. 

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