The Meals On Wheels Association of America recently released a groundbreaking study entitled “Senior Hunger in the United States: Differences across States and Rural and Urban Areas.” A follow-up to the landmark 2008 report entitled “The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America,” the national research study examines senior hunger on a state-by-state level and provides substantial evidence that the number of seniors facing the threat of hunger in America is growing at an alarming rate.
In fact, senior hunger is even growing right here in Texas.
The findings indicate that Texas ranks fourth out of America’s 50 senior hunger states. To make matters worse, the rate of food insecurity among seniors living in Texas is 8.9 percent.
Even though the Texas State Legislature has alleviated the problem to some extent, by providing $20 million in funding through the Texans Feeding Texans Program for 2008 and 2009 and another $20 million for 2010 and 2011, it still does not cover all the costs needed to make up the gap in state and federal funding.
In response to this enormous and complicated problem, Meals On Wheels programs across the country have simply taken a pledge at www.mowaa.org/pledge to join a national movement to end senior hunger by 2020.
“We are so disturbed and appalled to learn that so many seniors are going hungry in Texas and around the country,” said Lois Durant, executive director of Meals on Wheels of Palestine Inc. which serves Anderson, Cherokee and Rusk counties in East Texas.
“At our Meals On Wheels program, we work every day to provide our clients not only with a nutritious meal, but also with companionship. Our program has pledged to join the national movement to end senior hunger by 2020 and we want everyone in Palestine, and our three-county area to do the same. The need is great and now more so than ever is the time for all Americans to step up to the plate.”
Durant said the local program not only doesn’t have enough money to serve all the seniors, but doesn’t have enough volunteers to deliver the meals.
“Having to pay drivers a salary as well as mileage to deliver meals, takes away from our food budget. We are in need of volunteers in Palestine, but have a desperate need in Jacksonville and Henderson,” Durant said.
“Volunteer drivers within the city limits could free up paid drivers to deliver outside of the city limits with the vehicles provided to the program.”
Meals on Wheels recently obtained a grant from the East Texas Area Agency on Aging to purchase one delivery vehicle and a grant from SSBG Grant Funds for Hurricane Ike to purchase four more. These vehicles have been sent to Jacksonville in Cherokee County and Henderson in Rusk County to replace vehicles which were in dire need of replacement.
Four of the old cars have been sold and that money has been placed in the general fund to help with the cost of meals, Durant said.
This national movement comes at a good time, as the study shows that about 700,000 more seniors faced the threat of hunger in 2007 than did in 2001. Seniors residing in the South are at greatest risk.
“We released our first study a year ago and now the most recent research has found that there are 20 percent more seniors facing the threat of hunger in America. It is a travesty that in this, the richest nation on Earth, our seniors are going to bed hungry,” said Enid A. Borden, president and CEO of MOWAA.
“Hunger is a disease, but we have the cure to end senior hunger today. We just need the leadership and the courage to get it done,” Borden said.
The study, underwritten by the Harrah’s Foundation, was conducted by Co-Principal Investigators Dr. James P. Ziliak, professor of economics and the director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky and Dr. Craig Gundersen, associate professor at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois.
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Report documents hunger problem
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