Home delivered, congregate meals provide more than nutrition to older Iowans

In 2015, alone, meal programs served 33,153 meals to more than 4,000 older Iowans who were food insecure, according to the Iowa Commission on Aging. Nearly half of these Iowans over the age of 60 could not afford to eat a well-balanced meal. Forty-two percent reported that they had to cut the size of their meals due to not having the money to buy food.

Food insecurity and hunger is a very real experience for Iowans, including within the seven counties served by Heritage Area Agency on Aging.

Heritage recently collaborated with Rutgers University and national Meals on Wheels America to study hunger and food insecurity within our region, which includes Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn and Washington counties. They found that 14 percent of home-delivered meal participants had eaten less than they felt they should in the previous 30 days because they didn't have enough money to buy food. This study also found that 21 percent of these individuals cannot prepare meals for themselves. Food insecurity and hunger is a concern for Heritage and its partners across the state.

Two events next month will help combat this serious issue.

First, the Subaru Share the Love Food Drive will take place on Saturday, Dec. 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at all area Fareway Food Stores, and Family Foods in Tipton. On that day, volunteers will pass out fliers to shoppers listing food items that we are most in need of to help us provide meals for older adults in our area. The goal of this effort is to incite community involvement and generate donations of food.

The following day, on Dec. 6, the Heritage Agency's Fill the Plate telethon will be broadcast from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on KCRG 9.2. The overarching goal of this telethon is to bring support and awareness for the Regional Senior Nutrition Home Delivered and Congregate Meal Program. The telethon has been a great success in the past three years, reaching over 75,000 viewers annually and generating over $199,000 in direct financial and donated food support. Every penny raised goes directly toward funding meals and food service equipment to older adults throughout East Central Iowa.

The Fill the Plate telethon and Subaru Share the Love Food Drive were developed in 2012, in response to a significant cut in available funding for meals throughout East Central Iowa. Over the past 10 years, voluntary contributions for home-delivered meals have decreased a total of $237,000. Voluntary contributions provide 27 percent of the annual funding for Heritage's Regional Senior Nutrition Program. While the past three telethons have mustered great support and success, the needs of our older adults still are outpacing the available funding.

Your participation and donations are crucial to assist older adults in our area.

It costs less to provide an entire year of home-delivered meals to an older adult than it does to provide only one month of care in an institutional setting. Additionally, older adults who live alone but receive daily meals tend to experience the greatest improvements in health and quality of life.

While access to proper nutrition is vital for older adults to live healthy, active lives, home delivered and congregate meals deliver more than a meal. The meals provide nutrition, but the visits feed the mind. These essential programs provide much needed safety checks and companionship that so many seniors struggle with on a daily basis. As Atul Gawande, surgeon and author of Being Mortal, has written about the essential need our seniors have for companionship and social interaction: 'Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.”

This one-on-one interaction is especially important during the holiday season. This festive time of year can be stressful with shopping, cooking and other holiday preparations. It is even more stressful for older adults that live alone with no family or friends willing or able to visit with them. Something as simple as a daily visit from a warm and friendly face can improve the quality of life, feed the mind and lift the spirits of a homebound older adult, which is often just as beneficial as the meal they receive.

One of the most poignant aspects of these programs is the long-term benefits of daily home delivered meals and social contact for homebound older adults. By lessening feelings of isolation and loneliness and reducing the rate of falls, research suggests that traditional Meals on Wheels service delivery has the greatest potential to decrease health care costs. Keeping our older adults at home longer and preventing premature institutionalization saves more than crippling out of pocket costs for families, it saves taxpayers money.

We hope you will tune in to this year's Fill the Plate telethon on Dec. 6, to learn about these vital programs, be entertained by local talent and support the most at-risk seniors in our community.

Donations are now being accepted at www.kirkwood.edu/filltheplate. You have the ability to provide a warm and nutritious meal to a senior in need with a mere five dollar donation.

For more information about the Fill the Plate telethon and Subaru Share the Love Food Drive, please contact Tim Getty at the Heritage Agency at (319) 398-5559 ext. 1096 or tim.getty@kirkwood.edu.

Thank you to our sponsors, staff and, most important, the volunteers who continue to provide these vital programs on a daily basis. Through continued community support, older adults throughout Eastern Iowa will continue to receive the nutritious meals and vital companionship and safety checks they so desperately need and deserve.

We hope that you and your family have a very happy holiday season and prosperous New Year.

' Joe Sample is executive director and Tim Getty is regional nutrition coordinator for The Heritage Agency on Aging.