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Senior lunch program to return to hot meals after county funding cut, Family Service Association says
Summary
Family Service Association told the Calimesa City Council that a 30% funding cut from Riverside County forced the senior grab-and-go meal program to revert to hot meals; the group said it will continue seeking supplemental funding and will meet with volunteers before beginning the new service in February.
Tom Donahue, program administrator for Family Service Association, told the City of Calimesa at the Jan. 21 meeting that the senior center’s grab-and-go meal program — introduced during the COVID-19 emergency — will return to a hot-meal format after Riverside County reduced the provider’s contract funding by 30%.
Donahue said the grab-and-go program served roughly 120 people weekly, about half of whom are Calimesa residents, and that the California Department of Aging directed congregate-meal programs to return to their pre-pandemic formats. He said the contract grant process for Riverside County was delayed and when funds arrived in July the award represented a 30% reduction.
"We had to make some very dramatic changes to our program," Donahue said. He told the council that Family Service Association tried to preserve the grab-and-go model while searching for alternative funding and that the agency received a mid-year supplemental allocation that permitted continuation at the current level but not a return to grab-and-go.
Donahue brought a sample February menu and said staff and volunteers will meet to plan the first full week of the hot-meal service in early February. He thanked the city manager and assistant city manager for advocacy on behalf of the program and offered to meet with council members or residents for further explanation.
Ending: No council action was required; the remarks were provided as a public-comment briefing and an explanation of operational changes tied to county funding and state guidance.
