Program to bring nutritious foods to low-income seniors

The Hoosier Hills Food Bank will begin providing monthly food packages to low-income senior citizens in Monroe County through the Commodity Supplemental Food Program.

The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered through the Indiana State Department of Health, and it will start this month.  
Its purpose is not to be the sole source of food for low-income seniors but to merely supplement their current diets with nutritious foods.

Each participant will receive a 40-pound box of food stocked with vegetables, fruit, canned meat, peanut butter, greens, cereal, juice, milk and cheese, said Casey Steury, director of programs at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.

To qualify for the program, a potential applicant must be a Monroe County resident, must be at least 60 years old and must make 130 percent lower than the national poverty level.

The national poverty line is $11,670 annually for a single-person household, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Hoosier Hills Food Bank is one of three food banks in Indiana that participates in the CSFP.

Hoosier Hills currently operates the CSFP in Crawford, Orange, Martin and Brown counties.

It was recently approved to expand operation into Monroe County, Steury said.
“The USDA gives each state a caseload — a certain amount of boxes of food,” Steury said. “Then the state caseload is split between the food banks participating in the program.”

Hoosier Hills will receive 850 boxes per month to divide between the five counties.  

“We try to do it based on the number of seniors in poverty based on the census data,” Steury said. “We estimated that there were 2,400 impoverished seniors in Monroe County.”

Hoosier Hills will accommodate 100 qualified seniors.

Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis, Steury said.

The applicants will then be scheduled for an interview in which they will be required to provide income documentation.

After the first 100 seniors are approved for the program, any additional applicants will be placed on a waiting list.

Steury said Hoosier Hills hopes to expand the 100-person limit in Monroe County.

“We envision the program growing,” he said. “Eventually, we hope to be able to add additional seniors, but that depends on how federal and state caseloads are allocated each year, as Congress and the USDA consider funding availability.”

Six-and-a-half percent of Monroe County’s senior citizen population, or those 65 years and older, lives below the poverty level.

This is the lowest among the five participating counties administered by Hoosier Hills.
Additionally, Monroe County has the highest poverty rate in the state at 24.6 percent.

“The supplemental food program is vital for Monroe County,” Steury said. “Monroe County has the most individuals in poverty, and this is a huge step for the food bank in working towards our goal of getting food out to individuals.”

Julio Alonso, Hoosier Hills executive director, said he hopes this program will help other local charities in a collective effort to combat hunger among the Monroe County senior citizen population.

“We hope that this program will help supplement the efforts of others like Area 10, Meals on Wheels, Community Kitchen and various food pantries to help ensure that these older people have access to adequate nutrition,” Alonso said.

Area 10 Agency on Aging relishes the opportunity in assisting Hoosier Hills with the CSFP, Laura Kray, nutrition manager at the Area 10 Agency on Aging, said.

“We’re really excited about the program, and we will be working with the Hoosier Hills Food Bank to help identify seniors that might qualify for the program,” she said. “We have promotional information, and we will be distributing it to people we think will qualify or be interested in the program.”

Hoosier Hills is seeking volunteers to assist in the laborious task of packing the boxes to distribute to the seniors, Steury said.

“This program is 90 percent volunteer-run,” he said. “We have to pack 850 boxes a month and are in desperate need for volunteers during the summer. This program and volunteers are vital to the seniors being able to sustain their living.”