CONGRESSMAN JARED HUFFMAN joined volunteers delivering meals Monday to Marin County residents facing food insecurity, highlighting the growing demand for nutrition services among the county’s aging population.
On Monday’s ride-along, Huffman joined the staff and volunteers of Vivalon, which runs several nutrition programs that provide over 250,000 meals annually to Marin County’s disabled and aging residents. In addition to Meals on Wheels, Vivalon operates a food pantry, reduced-price lunches and Vivalon Nourish, a home-delivered meal service for individuals living with health challenges.
“Unfortunately, there’s a need that continues to increase,” Vivalon CEO Kaushik Roy said. Roy added that if you don’t count some of the state’s small rural counties, Marin County has the oldest residents in the state of California.
“The high cost of living, combined with age, leads to a lot of challenges for aging adults,” he said. According to Marin County Aging and Adult Services, approximately 25% of county residents ages 60 and older — nearly 17,000 people — are at risk of food insecurity and lack sufficient income to meet their basic needs. Marin’s fastest growing population is over age 80.
According to Gus Nodal, spokesperson for Vivalon, the number of people served by the organization has increased in the last decade by 55%, and the number of meals delivered has increased by 69%. Over 73,000 meals were provided to 499 people in 2016. This year, 123,600 meals were provided to 774 people.
Vivalon’s Meals on Wheels program serves 475 clients throughout east Marin County, reaching as far as Novato and Sausalito. The nonprofit purchases the food from the Council on Aging in Sonoma County, where it is prepared under health department regulations, according to Vivalon spokesperson Jenny Calloway. Sixty-eight volunteers deliver seven hot meals a week with drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Closeup with clients
On his first delivery, Huffman met 63-year-old Mark Young, whose mental health diagnosis prevents him from working.
“Because of my disability, it was hard for me to make ends meet,” said Young. Then a friend told him about the food service and his health improved.
The second client Huffman visited was 88-year-old Luzie Tison, who immigrated from Germany after World War II and was a musical performer for troops stationed at the Presidio, a U.S. Army post in San Francisco. She is recently widowed and living alone with limited physical mobility. When she saw Vivalon volunteer Phil Bacigalupi, she embraced him like a son.
“Sometimes when you’re a member of Congress, you hear about these programs but it kind of helps to actually see the people that are getting these meals delivered,” Huffman said.
Bacigalupi was guiding Huffman on a few of his scheduled 23 deliveries on Monday.
“We can go up to over 50 stops per driver,” Bacigalupi said, adding that he gets to know his clients who live alone and can detect problems that might otherwise go unnoticed.
“This little trip this morning dropping off food tells a bigger story about volunteers who see these folks every day,” said Huffman, “There’s a connection there, and there’s a wellness check and actually a relationship.”
Putting food on the table
In a public statement preceding the event, Huffman said the Trump administration’s cuts to federal food assistance are making it more difficult for older adults to put food on the table.
“Meals on Wheels was on the chopping block for a while,” said Roy. “Thankfully, someone must have told Trump that red states get hot meals too, so it was saved in the last moment.”
Roy said federal cuts impact many of the program’s partners, like Marin Community Clinics, which provides health care to uninsured and low-income residents, and social services nonprofit Community Action Marin. West Marin Senior Services delivers meals for the coastal communities.
Vivalon also operates a Brown Bag Pantry every Friday at the Healthy Aging Campus (formerly Whistlestop Active Aging Center) at 999 Third St. in San Rafael. They also serve low-cost meals at the center Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Other officials scheduled for a Meals on Wheels ride-along this week include Marin County Supervisors Eric Lucan and Mary Sackett, San Rafael Councilmember Rachel Kertz, Novato Councilmember Pat Eklund and California Assemblymember Damon Connolly.
