SANFORD — Christina Darrell has taken to the YMCA’s Trafton Senior Center like, well, a duck to water.

She joined because, as a Type 2 diabetic, she needed exercise, so she quickly took up Tai Chi classes offered by the center.

Before and after class – or any time the center is open – she can now enjoy a cup of coffee, a cup of yogurt or a bowl of soup with friends at the Trafton Café, adding a social aspect to her time at the center.

“I didn’t realize how isolated I (had become),” she said Wednesday when seniors and a host of community members turned out to celebrate the café’s grand opening.

Trafton Café had been a dream of senior center director Thea Murphy for a couple of years. A gift from the Sanford campus of Southern Maine Health Care – a gleaming, stainless steel refrigerated café bar that was no longer in use – helped spark a wave of giving that transformed a large room at the senior center. A grant from the Agnes Lindsey Trust helped too.

There was a gift of chairs and some new, smaller café tables, allowing for a more intimate setting. New drywall was installed, and fresh paint was rolled on the walls.

The café had a soft opening earlier this winter, not long after the construction project went into overdrive.

“A month later, we were open and running and under budget,” Murphy told a full house at the café Wednesday. “Thank you, and praises to the community.”

The community made the café, she said, and the community of seniors who use it makes it thrive.

“It does speak volumes of our community,” said Sanford Mayor Tom Cote.

Kim LaChance of Southern Maine Health care spoke of Murphy’s contribution. “Without her energy and spark … we wouldn’t have a lot of the things we have,” she said.

When the hospital decided to donate the café bar, Murphy was delighted, but immediately began to panic that it wouldn’t fit. So she stopped by to see Maura Herlihy, a friend of the senior center and Sanford’s deputy mayor.

Herlihy grabbed a tape measure and set off up hospital hill. Satisfied the bar would indeed fit, they returned and encountered carpenter George Rankin – and the rest is history.

As they enjoyed a light meal and a Champagne toast celebrating the opening, seniors chatted about the café.

Robert Berube said he drops by the senior center when meals are served and during events, such as when musi- cians show up to play guitar. Sometimes, he said, the seniors dance.

He wasn’t sure about the café at first, but once he saw the work progress, he changed his mind.

There is a fee for café snacks, but just enough to cover the cost of the food, Murphy said. The café is selfserve.

“I was practically the first one to try the soup of the day” in the café, said Sandra Warner. “I play bridge, and so I come here to have lunch first.”

Cynthia McQuarrie comes for the craft group that meets on Fridays, and said she also enjoys Trafton Café.

“We’re lucky to have it,” she said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.