Food organizations collaborate to help seniors during reopening of businesses

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - As businesses reopen, Julie Orr with Meals on Wheels believes it’s critical to help seniors feel safe. "When you have to consider the safety of reopening, our seniors who are the most vulnerable in our population and last on the list."

Orr says because the seniors will be in quarantine much longer, Meals on Wheels is adding more distribution partners to make sure they receive good food deliveries every day. "We’re able to collaborate right now with the Foodbank in order to provide the seniors an additional day of service that we didn’t have the opportunity to provide them before."

Volunteer Janie Allenson says the expanded service will be especially helpful not only for seniors but also for those most at-risk in the community. "We have increased our original number of people that we serve and we hope we can continue to do it, but getting food from the restaurant down in Santa Barbara is adding a whole day of food and as Julie said they don’t have to go out and they don’t have to face risks"

As businesses begin to reopen, crews with Meals on Wheels say they hope to continue serving seniors and those most vulnerable during the pandemic

"There are a number of challenges they face, so one of them is just the difficulty of opening up some of the cans. Or maybe they don’t have an oven to cook food or stovetop to cook food and so right now we’re working with restaurants to provide prepared meals that they can easily pop in the microwave," said Lacey Baldiviez with the Santa Barbara County Foodbank.

This collaboration is part of a countywide expansion of the Chef's Kitchen program to increase meal distribution.