Learn for the love of it! Discover something new, plan your next trip, or an amazing meal. A variety of interesting classes are offered throughout the year for adults who enjoy the fun and excitement of learning new things. We offer classes in diverse areas such as history, science, nature, music, current events and places of interest in the Big Bend region.

Our affordable programs are open to anyone 18 years and older. Schedule virtual family time together with your adult children and grandchildren, even if they live out of town. With virtual classes, people can participate from any location with internet access. 

We offer some classes on Zoom. If you would like to learn how to use Zoom, please call 850-891-4000 and Senior Center staff will set you up with a volunteer who can help you over the phone or computer. Or click here for our Zoom guide.

For more information, email Maureen.Haberfeld@talgov.com

Be sure to read our weekly emails for upcoming classes. Click here to sign up for our email list.

UPCOMING CLASSES

Food for Life- Kickstart Your Health
 May 6, 2024 – June 17, 2024
 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

A plant-based diet of whole grains, beans, vegetables and fruits can help prevent diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, and other chronic diseases. This program, based on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s successful 21-day Vegan Kickstart program, is about making a qualitative shift in the way we eat as opposed to a quantitative shift. Depending on one’s perspective, the Kickstart is about losing weight, maintaining a healthy weight, or simply embracing an overall healthful diet. Each two-hour class features a video, discussion, cooking demonstration and the opportunity to taste some delicious plant-based dishes. This 7-week class will have five in-person sessions, and two optional zoom sessions. $60 fee for all five classes. In person classes Mondays, 5/6, 5/13, 6/3, 6/10, 6/17 10:00 am – noon TSC Auditorium. 

Click here to register

Seacrest Wolf Preserve
 May 10, 2024
 8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Seacrest Wolf Preserve offers an unforgettable, educational experience where visitors encounter wolves. This rare and immersive experience allows guests to come face to face with the Seacrest Wolf Ambassadors as they learn important scientific information about this amazing keystone species. Our group will experience a wolf encounter tour and a small animal adventure. Picnic lunch following the Tour at Falling Waters State Park.

The facility has a very strict dress code:

Wear CREW NECK short or long sleeve shirt, or sweatshirt only. No Jackets. Wear jeans or khakis only with no exposed ankles or skin. No pants with holes, leggings, or sweatpants. Wear tennis / athletic shoes or canvas shoes ONLY! If you are not compliant, you will not be able to enter wolf enclosures or go on our educational tours –  NO EXCEPTIONS. A full list of rules will be emailed to participants before the tour

Fee: $75 includes transportation from TSC, picnic lunch, and tour.

Click here to register

Poetry & Snapshot Memoir workshop
Wed., May 15, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Do you have stories to tell, right from your own life? Would you like to be better at finding, expressing, and preserving them? Poet Laureate Nathan Brown will help you discover the poet/writer in you and begin telling your story. This workshop explores approaches and techniques for beginning to record our Life Stories. These ideas and strategies are useful for all writers, poets, and songwriters—novice and experienced.
Featured topics will be:
• Ways to organize your work, and many stories, to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
• Storytelling and poetry frameworks and techniques that help hold the attention of readers.
• Strategies for developing a daily writing practice, and why that matters.

Click here to register

May Spring House Tour
 May 21, 2024
 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

While attending the 1950 World Federalist Conference at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL, George and Clifton Lewis of Tallahassee asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for them, saying they “have a lot of children and not much money.” He agreed and the couple located a beautiful five-acre parcel in Leon County on the outskirts of Tallahassee. Mr. Wright completed the plans in 1952, of an unconventional pod-shaped house described as a passive solar “hemicycle” The house was built in just nine months in 1954. Take a guided tour this unique structure which is the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed home in Florida. Most of the fee for this one-of-a-kind tour goes to the restoration of this local treasure. Fee $37 Limited Space Available. Meet at Spring House off North Monroe Street.

Click here to register

English Tea
May 24, 2024
11:00 am – 1:30 pm

Put on your fancy hat and experience an English Tea at the tearoom in the Rabbit Creek Market. Enjoy a lovely plate of signature scones, cream, fresh fruit, cup of soup (served during cold weather), finger sandwiches, tasty tea breads, dainty desserts, and a bottomless pot of Brian Edward’s Select Tea (your choice of over 100 flavors). There will be time for shopping at the market following the meal.

$40 fee. Transportation from the TSC. Meet at the TSC for transportation at 10:30 am.  Limited space available.

Click here to register

By Land and By Sea
June 13, 2024
5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Join us for a Lifelong Learning Talk and Art Reception for our By Land and Sea Exhibits. Featured speakers will be Jack and Cypress Rudloe, founder and managing director, of the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea. They will discuss the connection between the land and the sea as well as how the how the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab has embraced art to help illustrate that vital connection. View artworks by our talented senior center artists that include gorgeous land and sea themed paintings, fabric art, photography, and more while enjoying beverages and appetizers. $5 donation.

Click here to register

June Spring House tour
June 18, 2024
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

While attending the 1950 World Federalist Conference at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL, George and Clifton Lewis of Tallahassee asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for them, saying they “have a lot of children and not much money.” He agreed and the couple located a beautiful five-acre parcel in Leon County on the outskirts of Tallahassee. Mr. Wright completed the plans in 1952, of an unconventional pod-shaped house described as a passive solar “hemicycle” The house was built in just nine months in 1954. Take a guided tour this unique structure which is the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed home in Florida. Most of the fee for this one-of-a-kind tour goes to the restoration of this local treasure. Fee $37 Limited Space Available. Meet at Spring House off North Monroe Street.

Click here to register

Madagascar and the Seychelles
June 19, 2024
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Scattered across the eastern Indian Ocean, the archipelagos of Seychelles and Madagascar harbor a wealth of species that exist nowhere else on the planet. Their cultures are also unique, woven from African, Asian, Polynesian, and European roots. World traveler Tom Friedman will help us discover these diverse islands and their unusual species, beautiful beaches, jungles, coral reefs, and wild rock formations. Hybrid class in TSC Dining Room and on Zoom. $5 Fee.

Click here to register