The Senior Center of the Family Service Agency and the city of DeKalb, with help from the DeKalb County Youth Services Bureau, offers snow removal to senior citizens and the disabled including those living at NIU.

Senior Center Director Tom Zucker said snow removal is available to anyone who calls the center for the service and charges are worked out between the person removing snow and the person needing the service.

Sue Haas, a disabled NIU student, said she thinks this service is a good idea. “Old people and disabled can’t remove snow by themselves, and it is good to have someone to do it for them,” she said. Haas said she has no need for the service because the University clears the snow around her dorm.

Zucker said the center “will screen for people that are unable to afford the service and will help them get the service without having to pay for it.”

The snow removal service is important because senior citizens and the disabled have no other access to such a service, Zucker said.

Diane Dailing, director of the DeKalb County Youth Services Bureau, said the group did not participate last year because it was not organized enough.

Dailing said her goal is to get a youth employment program started in order to give the youth an opportunity to get employed in their community.

“Hopefully this will get the kids more involved in worthwile things,” she said. The bureau would like to expand the program to mowing lawns in the summer and raking leaves in the fall, Dailing said.