As 2022 comes to a close, the Fountain Hills Community Center reflects on a year teeming with club activity and operating at full capacity as new and existing programs, clubs and private events vie for space in its cavernous rooms and amenities meant for a host of activities.

The Center’s Program Coordinator, Cheryl Ponzo, often finds herself shuffling programs around the calendar to accommodate for physical space, a commodity in high demand especially during the holidays, as end-of-year parties and private events fill the Center’s map.

After its closure in 2020, the Community Center extended its memberships through 2021 with social distancing in place and limited programming. Entering 2023, a high volume of Community Center members is renewing according to Ponzo, who says her patrons have been starved for interaction and anxious to return to in-person gatherings.

“They missed each other,” Ponzo said. “Interacting with their neighbors and their friends and like-minded people playing dominoes or scrabble or [attending] something on arthritis and diabetes, they’re ready to be back out there.”

Ponzo said friends of the Community Center have begun to reintegrate themselves in ways that are both familiar and new, highlighting a few clubs that have taken the spotlight when it comes to growing membership, the first being Mahjongg.

“There’s a real big interest in mahjong in Fountain Hills,” Diane Barbuto said, who runs the Beginner Mahjong classes at the Community Center.

With an explosion of interest in the traditional Chinese game, the Center plans to add two more mahjong meetups to its existing three classes: Evening Mahjong and Hong Kong Old Style Mahjong.

“I’m constantly having people call me about joining mahjong and I could probably do more if I chose to,” Barbuto said, who decided to cap her class size because there were too many people to look after.

Barbuto also runs Hooks & Needles, a social club that meets weekly to knit and crochet for personal use and also for charity. This year, the group has contributed 2,500 items to organizations including the Crisis Center in Fountain Hills, Native Health in Phoenix and Mesa and a number of veteran groups in Fountain Hills and throughout the Valley.

“Both of the clubs have grown significantly since the downturn of COVID,” Barbuto said. “We’re doing very well.”

On a recent, cold December night, Ponzo was shocked to see the number of people showing up to enjoy an evening film at the Community Center.

“We had 18 people come out for a movie night and we thought it was going to be a flop because it’s dark outside,” Ponzo said. “It may not seem like much to you, but to them, it’s everything.”

Other table-based groups like the Bridge Club, Spanish Club and Bingo have all begun to grow out of their assigned rooms, while movement-based programs like line dancing have also shuffled their way into larger spaces.

Pam Vaccaro is the Center’s line dance instructor who, in preparation for her daughter’s wedding, learned how to dance by attending lessons at the Community Center in 2009. She began teaching in 2013 and has witnessed her classes grow from a handful of dancers to a total of 85 sign-ups entering the new year.

With her line dancers sidelined in 2020, Vaccaro took some time to reformulate and extend her class structure from a few months to a year-long syllabus. As dancers returned, Vaccaro saw major improvements and interest from her dancers, crediting her time away from teaching as the catalyst to start something new.

“It gave me time to help people actually learn how to dance and we’re thrilled with what we’re seeing,” she said.

Health and wellness initiatives have grown in number at the Community Center including practical stress management workshops, new Geri-Fit classes and continued wellness-based sessions on functioning without joint pain.

The Metabolic Support Group – a new club that helps people understand their metabolic strengths and weaknesses – has met only twice, but Ponzo is already planning to move them into a larger space due to increased group interest.

“People are hungry for health and they’re hungry to be with other people,” Ponzo said, who recently purchased a fourth ping pong table because of a growing interest from Center members hoping to rally with friends and neighbors.

With a mission to enrich and provide an active quality of life for residents and visitors, it’s no wonder the Community Services staff was Gold Award finalists for the second year in a row, and a winner for the first time, from the National Recreation and Parks Association and the American Academy for Parks and Recreation Administration.

Leading two of the largest social clubs at the Community Center, Barbuto said there are not enough good things to say about the Community Center staff and their ability to manage waves of folks hoping to reengage with their fellow community members.

“They go out of their way to do above and beyond,” she said. “They’re marvelous.”

For Ponzo, the best thing to come out of COVID is “it taught us how much we need one another. People need human contact. Hallmark movies doesn’t cut it all day.”

For more information about clubs, programs and other activities at the Community Center, check out regular postings in The Times, pick up an “In The Loop Community Activity Guide” or visit fountainhillsaz.gov/151/In-the-Loop.