In a recent conversation with one of our senior shoppers, the unique challenges that older adults face getting the nutrition they need was underscored.
Our shopper, Mary, said the Food Bank’s No Cost Market saves her and her husband roughly $200 a month in grocery expenses. She said the support comes at a critical time when the cost of living has stretched their budget to the limit.
“It’s like, do you fill up your car or do you eat?” she said. “Being a senior citizen, we live on social security, so we don’t have that extra money. We could save easily $200 a month on food (by shopping at the Food Bank).”
Fixed income isn’t the only obstacle to being food secure for our community’s seniors. Older adults can also face additional health care costs, limited mobility issues that make meal preparation a challenge and a lack of transportation to get the resources they need.
At the Food Bank, our hunger-relief services and partners provide nutrition to more than 5,000 older adults. Through our Fresh Foundations for Seniors program, the aim is to meet these unique challenges through a variety of services and ensure older adults have the food they need to support their health, well-being and independence.
Well-balanced, nutritious meals
With the goal to create a well-balanced and nutritious meal that seniors don’t have to prepare themselves, our Nutritious Kitchen works to provide hundreds of daily made-from-scratch meals to older adults. Last year, we cooked more than 24,500 meals for older adults. Through our partnership with Volunteers of America, a nonprofit human services organization, we distribute these meals to senior living complexes as well as senior centers across Larimer County.
Nutritious, ready-to-eat frozen meals are also frozen for home delivery. We work with several nonprofit partners to get these meals directly to seniors’ doorsteps, including those who live in rural areas. This effort is part of our overall strategic Food is Medicine framework that seeks to connect more people with nutritious foods that can help to prevent chronic disease. In addition to meals for seniors, the framework includes nutrition education and use of our HER rating system to help our nonprofit partners know the nutritional value of the foods they are selecting for their hunger-relief programs. It also extends to healthcare partnerships, like our Family Medicine Center pantry with UCHealth.
Access to non-perishable staples and home delivery
Giving seniors the nutritious staples they need to stock their home pantries and allow for easy preparation of meals and snacks is another crucial element of our work. At the Food Bank, we help facilitate Colorado’s Everyday Eats program. This provides seniors with a box of non-perishable staples, like cereal, juice and canned fruits and vegetables. Older adults who qualify, are able to pick these boxes up at our No Cost Markets. We distributed 7,157 Everyday Eats boxes to seniors in the last year.
Our services also extend to getting this food to seniors through home delivery. While we hope to expand our case load outside of select senior living complexes, we are proud to have established partnerships that help us to reach people who aren’t able to visit our No Cost Markets.
Accessibility hours
After talking with older adults in our community through a series of focus groups, we found a need to offer exclusive shopping hours to our seniors and people with disabilities at our No Cost Markets. As a result, we designate Wednesdays as accessibility hours for only these individuals. This cuts down on the time waiting in line. We also created special volunteer roles to assist our shoppers during these hours in navigating the shopping floor and unloading items from their grocery carts into vehicles.
Providing outreach
We also want our seniors to have access to all of the resources in our Larimer County community that could provide them with nutritious food. Our Community Impact team visits senior centers and living complexes to help older adults sign up for SNAP benefits. The team also provides education on how to maximize benefits, like using Double Up Food Bucks at our local farmers’ markets.
Elevating the voice of our community
All of these services stem from our desire to stay connected with our community’s seniors and learn from their experience. This helps to fuel, inspire and shape our programs to meet their needs with dignity, care, and compassion. Every meal shared, every box delivered, and every barrier removed brings us one step closer to a stronger, healthier community where older adults can thrive. Together, we are building a future in Larimer County where no senior has to wonder where their next meal will come from.
