Anonymous
Source: Community Action Commission
Community Action Commission of Santa Barbara County (CAC) announces a contractual agreement between its Senior Nutrition program and Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) Food Service to provide healthy meals for local seniors.
CAC was looking for a more effective and cost-efficient way to produce nutritious meals for seniors – both those who participate in the Healthy Table program at their local community meal centers and those whose meals are delivered to their home. CAC had previously operated its own kitchens with its own food preparation staff for the purpose of making meals for seniors. A vendor relationship established last year between CAC’s Head Start program for preschool children and SBUSD Food Service had proven successful, opening the door for this new plan of operation for CAC Senior Nutrition.
“Working with Nancy and her team at SBUSD has been a pleasure,” said Anthony “Tony” Mitchell, Chief Operating Officer, Community Action Commission. Nancy Weiss is the Director of Food Service for SBUSD and is responsible for the school district’s emphasis on healthy non-processed food that is fresh and sourced locally. SBUSD Food Service is held up as a model for schools throughout California and the Nation. Santa Barbara is the first known school district in the United States to remove processed meat—including hot dogs, pepperoni, and bacon—from each of its schools’ lunch menus, based on strong and consistent scientific evidence linking processed meat to cancer.
“They have worked tirelessly with CAC to meet the nutrition guidelines for seniors as stipulated by the Area Agency on Aging that provides significant funding for our county’s Senior Nutrition program,” said Mitchell. These guidelines are designed to ensure that healthy meals are served to seniors by elderly nutrition programs such as this one at CAC. One of the key guidelines is that each meal meet 1/3 of a senior’s daily nutritional requirements. “With respect to the quality of food for our seniors, SBUSD Food Service has not only met but has exceeded our expectations,” said Mitchell.
“Santa Barbara Unified is honored and privileged to partner with CAC in bringing our brand of “whole foods” meal service to the youngest and eldest and the most deserving in Santa Barbara County. We could not be prouder,” said Nancy Weiss, Director of Food Service for SBUSD.
Every day hundreds of seniors gather at 14 community meal centers from Guadalupe to Carpinteria, where they are welcomed by Healthy Table site hosts. In addition to the nutritious meals, seniors also benefit from socializing and sharing activities with their companions, an important part of their quality of life. For seniors who find it difficult or impossible to travel away from their homes, CAC’s Healthy at Home program delivers daily, nutritious meals to nearly 300 homebound seniors. This service allows seniors to live independently and be less likely to need to choose between buying medications, paying bills and eating. For many seniors, their delivery driver might be their only visitor of the day.
“Since we started the vendor relationship with SBUSD in January of this year, I have had the occasion to speak with several of our senior clients, and they all give me an enthusiastic thumbs-up about the taste and quality of these meals,” said Mitchell. “There was one gentleman who did give a little push-back when he encountered kale in his meal. But he was good natured about it.”
Senior Nutrition services – including the Healthy Table and the Healthy at Home programs – has been operated by Community Action Commission of Santa Barbara County since 1974. It is funded, in part, by the Area Agency for Aging but also supported through local fundraising efforts such as the annual Community Action Champions Dinner and Awards Presentation.
For CAC’s Healthy Lunch program in North County, SBUSD prepares meals at the Good Samaritan Shelter kitchen in Santa Maria.
“Nothing is more rewarding than providing nourishing, delicious and wholesome meals to our community,” said SBUSD’s Weiss.
For Healthy Table community meal center locations and senior meal menus visit cacsb.org/seniormeals. To learn more about CAC Nutrition Services, call: North County 1 805 925-3010, South County 1 805 683-4458.
This sounds wonderful. I hope the meals prepared at the Good Samaritan Shelter are better than those distributed by Meals On Wheels.
A lot of you are missing the bigger picture.
I ran a non-profit here for seniors…closed due to the lack of funding.
Was lucky enough to see was CAC, does.
Goleta, to Carp, they have a hot lunch, friendship, and kind people that know their names.
They are not all poor…most seniors that can actually get to a lunch program, are doing o.k.
The isolated seniors, I worry about…
They do Meals on Wheels ,which provides a great service…and yes, that is set up a lot from out of the area grown kids.
We need a lot more services for our seniors !
A lot of these seniors are women who worked outside the home but whose wages, therefore s.s. now, is not much. Inflation hits their savings particularly hard since when they saved, a quart of milk cost 22 cents not a dollar and a half. (I worked in a mom & pop grocery store as a kid.) Many of the others were housewives in a time when labor saving devices were few and not only took care of husband, kids and home but also elderly relatives and neighbors. Often in their senior years they were caretakers for incapacited/dying husbands as well.
And in return, their own children abandoned them in their own time of need? Isn’t that the real issue. Step up kids, when you see your own parents in this alleged extreme poverty situation that they need the government to give them free food.. Younger generations, let this be your teaching moment – have a Plan B at all times. And don’t expect to live and retire in one of the most expensive locations in the state and have someone else pay for that choice. There are other options and many, many people move in order to retire in far more suitable locations.
You nailed it !