The Commission on Aging continued talking with community members about their concerns regarding Newtown Senior Center’s (NSC) meal program at its Monday, March 17, meeting.
This discussion carries over from the COA’s meeting last month, where Newtown residents and senior center members raised concerns about the program’s free lunches and whether the food meets the nutritional needs of senior citizens.
Newtown Senior Center is one of many congregate meal sites of Connecticut’s Senior Nutrition Program, which provides nutritionally balanced meals to people ages 60 and over. The meals are served at locations like schools, churches, restaurants, and more, and also give seniors a chance to socialize with others.
Human Services and Senior Center Director Natalie Griffith said last meeting was when they really started to “dig deep” into what the challenges are with the current program, as well as how cuts at the federal level trickled down and impacted their funding source, Western Connecticut Area Agency on Aging (WCAAA).
Griffith, who is on the WCAAA Advisory Council, said that WCAAA Executive Director Spring Raymond shared at a March 13 advisory council meeting that funding levels are back down to where they were in 2019. She and her counterparts at the other four regional AAAs have been up at legislature, advocating for funding across many program sites at risk, including the congregate meal program.
Griffith also reached out to WCAAA Grants Manager Jose Carchi, who said that, due to WCAAA’s Nutrition Request for Proposal (RFP) process, they can only allocate nutrition funding directly to Elderly Nutrition Providers.
RW Solutions is the Elderly Nutrition Provider for the region and has oversight of the meal program at NSC, according to Griffith. This means that, even though Griffith said they pulled out of having RW Solutions being their meal provider and now use Nick’s Catering, RW Solutions still has oversight of their program.
“So our numbers are dependent on what that organization is allotting based on community need and their calculations,” Griffith said.
Newtown resident and senior center member Peggy Posteraro, who attended the last COA meeting and voiced her concerns about the NSC’s meal program, volunteered at the last meeting to gather feedback from other members about the program.
She conducted a short survey and encouraged all senior center members to participate, whether they participated in the program or not. This was important to Posteraro, as she wanted to know what draws people to the program and what keeps people away from it. Seventy surveys were distributed, while 31 people responded and returned their surveys.
Posteraro said most respondents were current meal program participants and that the greatest difficulties seemingly lie in the following areas: portion control, dietary preferences, regularity of meal availability, and retention of current cost.
Feedback also revealed how participants confuse the congregate meal program with the Lunch & Learn program, which is an educational program where attendees eat lunch while learning from specialists about topics from finance to healthcare.
Posteraro said that people come for free food any time it’s offered, adding that while it’s great for socialization, Food and Drug Administration nutrition “especially isn’t followed” at Lunch & Learns. The food at those events depends on whatever the presenter prefers to bring, compared to the free lunches from the congregate meal program, which focus on providing seniors with nutritionally balanced meals.
Posteraro said she was happy there was no “blatant red flag” in the survey results indicating people strongly disliked the program. Instead, the results show how people appreciate the program. Nevertheless, Posteraro said she hopes they can find a way to address the confusion about the congregate meal program, as well as other concerns raised by NSC members.
Griffith also touched on food safety and how the lunches have to comply with health regulations.
“We can’t just go to a local restaurant and order food for takeout without it being transported in the right way,” Griffith explained.
Commissioner LeReine Frampton spoke about plans to collaborate with local restaurants for fundraising and varied meal offerings. This includes exploring the concept of “donor days,” where a large percentage of sales would go to support the program. To that end, Frampton is compiling a letter to ask Newtown restaurants.
Griffith said that COA member Jack Kitterman also volunteered to take on some of the research over the last month, reaching out to five senior centers to gather information and better assess how their program is running.
Director Report
Griffith said that she was excited to report that the $100,000 in ARPA funds slated for senior transportation successfully made it through the review and approval process from the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance, and Legislative Council. The sub-recipient agreement contract comes courtesy of the Department of Aging and Disability Services and Office of Policy and Management.
The plan for the funds include: a part-time program coordinator who will assist in designing a plan for service, purchasing a smaller vehicle for individual rides (so a 12-passenger van won’t be deployed for one resident), and hiring as-needed drivers. The program coordinator’s first priorities will include gathering information on transportation needs for seniors throughout the community.
At the January COA meeting, Griffith reported that they received the subrecipient agreement for the ARPA funds, but were waiting for it to move through the respective Town boards.
According to Griffith, she attended both the BOF and LC meetings to provide more information and context about the project, as well as to talk about concerns about sustaining services and staffing once the grant period ends in December 2026.
“I really see this as an awesome opportunity for Newtown to really identify what the level of need is and strategize about how to best address that need,” Griffith said.
She continued by saying that, since it’ll give them a “clear picture” on the level of transportation needs locally, she doesn’t think they’ll know what it needs to look like after December 2026.
“Either the data shows the need is there and we’ll have to figure it out, or it’s less than expected and we’ll address what we need to keep in place going forward,” Griffith explained.
Director of Economic and Community Development John Voket recently followed up from his appearance at COA’s January meeting, which focused on local health care availability struggles, by sending a message to Griffith. He wanted to let COA members know that he has initiated outreach to some of the major hospital players on bringing medical services to Newtown.
“He’s hopeful to have some updates for us in the coming meetings, and said that he’s committed to combating the medical desert issues we’ve talked about before,” Griffith said.
Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at [email protected].
Commission on Aging members continued discussing concerns of Newtown Senior Center’s meal program during their meeting on Monday, March 17, which also was the prevailing topic of discussion at their previous meeting.—Bee Photo, Visca