In a tiny room filled with exercise bikes, elliptical trainers and treadmills, eight men well into their 70s are breaking a sweat. Down the hall, 45 senior citizens are extending exercise bands in pretzel-like positions to stretch their limbs in the Senior Kickers class.
The Kickers course is reserved for the dining area, which has to be cleared out in time for the Bible study and later, reorganized for meal time.
Every day, the VSP Club of Chesnee Senior Center rehearses this production - laden with too many scene changes, too many actors and not enough space on stage - because the promised funding for the facility's expansion was lost.
The state's tax-collection shortfall of $81 million resulted in cutbacks to 26 statewide funding items, including the center's anticipated $250,000 appropriation.
Had the center received its appropriation, about 3,000 feet of space for five additional classrooms would have been added to the facility.
News of the cuts came as a shock to Nancy Ogle, the executive director of Senior Centers of Spartanburg - the parent company of Chesnee's Senior Center.
Chesnee's center serves nearly 40 percent of the 1,860 seniors who use the day-to-day services of the five senior centers in the system.
"The services we provide to our people are very necessary services," Ogle said. "Our senior population is growing by leaps and bounds."
The center planned to raise an additional $50,000 from the community to accompany the state funding, but now the senior facility will have to attempt to raise the entire $300,000.
Center director Ridge Earland said he thought it unlikely the community could raise such a large amount.
"This is a small community, and it's basically seniors," Earland said. "We're going to have to just work for those grants."
The "VSP" in the center's name carries a special meaning, Earland said.
"It means 'Very Special People at a Very Special Place,'" Earland said. "There are a lot of poor people here - that's why we try to make it like a country club here. That's what made it popular. I think we're reaching so many people. We just have so many programs going on."
From home care and repair to health and case management, the center has provided an array of services to the area's elderly since its inception in 2001.
The facility, Earland said, was never meant to accommodate more than 100 seniors, but the growing need has become palpable.
Seniors from Cherokee County, Fingerville, Mayo and Chesnee frequent the center, and the number of clients has increased to 740 seniors.
The fitness classes have become one of the most popular offerings.
Exercise instructor Willie Mae Snyder said her classes sometimes grow too large to fit in the rooms provided.
"Some days we're lined up in here and it's hard to extend your arms and kick," she said. "We could use a bigger room for exercise. But we're counting our blessings for what we got."
With the space constraints, Ogle fears the center will have to turn people away.
"It would be a shame to get people who want to come here but can't," Ogle said. "We never thought it would be like this."
That's why the expansion was imperative for the organization, Earland said.
And where would the elderly go if they didn't have this "country club" setting to visit a few times a week, Bernie Hausman wanted to know.
Hausman said the facility is where she and her husband come to socialize.
"This is our connection," Hausman said. "We come here for friendship."
It's that connection that makes Ogle, Earland and the facility's volunteers push forward with their efforts to make the center bigger and better.
"These people deserve the best in independent living and to be connected to the community," Ogle said. "This (center) is the best manifestation of how it should be done."