Staff photo / David Skolnick ... Dr. Jerry Wilborn, left, chief medical officer for One Senior Care, is with Craig Worland, the company’s chief operating officer, at a Tuesday event to celebrate the ribbon cutting of the Buckeye PACE facility on Elm Road NE in Warren. Three Buckeye PACE centers for seniors — with the others in Youngstown and Ashtabula — will open Aug. 1.

WARREN — An organization is set to launch three senior day centers — in Warren, Youngstown and Ashtabula — on Aug. 1 at former Rite Aid locations.

Buckeye PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) had a ribbon cutting Tuesday at its Warren location at 2154 Elm Road NE.

“This 10,000- to 11,000-square-foot space is a really nice footprint for us when we look at everything we want to do in these centers and how we want to build,” said Craig Worland, chief operating officer for One Senior Care, Buckeye PACE’s parent company.

The centers will provide daytime activities for seniors as well as medical care, transportation and social engagement, Worland said.

“PACE is all-inclusive care for the elderly,” he said. “That’s what the program is designed to do. When I say it’s all inclusive, it truly is everything.”

Worland said: “We serve seniors who qualify to live in long-term care, but want to stay in their home and need those wraparound services to be able to stay at home. We offer everything from primary care to the day center. When they’re here, they’re able to participate in activities and socialize, but they’re also supervised so family members can work and take care of what they need to take care of while our staff offers physical therapy, occupational therapy, audiology, dental work, as well as all the transportation.”

He added: “We have a fleet of vans that will go out and serve our seniors here in the community, bring them to the day center as well as bring them to their other medical appointments or other appointments they may have in town either at places to worship or bingo club or book club, whatever they want to do.”

The clientele must be at least 55 years old, qualified to live in a nursing home, with 90% of the participants on Medicaid and about 80% also on Medicare, Worland said.

“Our promise is to keep them in the community and out of a nursing home,” said Dr. Jerry Wilborn, chief medical officer. “If they already qualify — whether it’s economics, lack of social support in the community — what we’re providing is a stopgap to all of those things so they can stay at home.”

These are the first three senior day centers being opened in Ohio by One Senior Care, based in Erie, Pa. The organization has facilities in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia.

The Youngstown location is at 2701 Market St. on the city’s South Side. The Ashtabula location is at 2148 Lake Ave.

The company purchased the three former drugstores last year for between $1.4 million and $1.5 million each.

For services authorized by PACE, there is no bill, with the expenses covered by Medicaid and / or Medicare.