VIDALIA — The Vidalia Police Department signed an ordinance Thursday morning to launch a new program to assist senior citizens in Vidalia at the Concordia Council on Aging Office in the Concordia Parish Library.

VPD Chief Arthur Lewis, Fire Chief Jack Langston and Council on Aging Director Dorothy McDonald were all a part of the signing of the document to start the Vidalia chapter of the National Associations of Triads Inc.

Triad is an outreach program that assesses the needs of elderly residents and caters to them by developing and implementing plans of action to improve their quality of life.

“There has been a need for this sort of program for a long time in our town,” Lewis said. “And now we have the opportunity to implement it.”

Triad’s two main goals are to reduce the number of actual crimes against senior citizens and to reduce the fear of crime seniors may experience.

“I am deeply committed to this program because it will make a huge impact here in Vidalia,” Lewis said. “Too many of our seniors are left alone with no family to care for them and, increasingly, are becoming victims of many different types of crimes as a result.”

The Triad program brings together area law enforcement, businesses and senior citizens to collaborate on ideas and resources to improve life for area seniors.

The program does this by reducing elderly victimization and increasing the services needed by the elderly.

The program is also aimed at educating seniors on criminal activity that affects them. Program co-chairwomen Addie Hooper and Gayle Cowan said the program will include visits from law enforcement officials to senior citizens’ residences, which should begin in the next one to two weeks.

“We’re the ones that are really blessed by this program because older people have so much to share,” Cowan said. “We just hope we can give a little back to them.”

For more information, or if you would like to volunteer to help the program, contact Hooper or Cowan at the VPD at 318-336-5254.