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CALL TO ACTION to Restore Weekend Senior Meals

June 16, 2010 on 11:36 am | In Main Category | No Comments

In a last-minute budget cut, the Department of Aging & Adult Services has directed Project Open Hand and other senior nutrition providers to close all weekend meal sites serving low-income seniors throughout the City!

Project Open Hand has been providing hot nutritious meals and socialization for 300-500 seniors every weekend at five weekend meal sites for 12 years. Our weekend meal services are in the lowest-income neighborhoods of San Francisco, including the Tenderloin (at Curry and Downtown Senior Centers) and in the southeast section of town (at Visitacion Valley Community Center). Closing the Curry site will also stop the breakfast program for 190 seniors on weekends and holidays.

The Department’s plan calls for replacing the sit-down congregate hot lunches served on Saturdays and Sundays with substandard take-out meals distributed on Fridays, and laying off the staff who prepare, cook, distribute, and serve these meals on weekends. The Department proposed to cut $107,367 from Project Open Hand’s weekend meal service, and directed us to substitute bag lunches that don’t follow the Older Americans Act nutrition standards, instead of our “meals with love” that exceed those standards.

We know that our Senior Lunch Program is more than a meal – it is the opportunity to get out and socialize over a nutritious hot lunch with longtime friends. The program addresses the problems of isolation and depression as much as the nutritional needs of our elderly neighbors. These meal sites are essential community gathering-places for the lowest-income seniors who are struggling to live in dignity despite their poverty. Without the meal program on weekends, the sites would be closed, and seniors would be left alone in their SRO rooms eating a bag lunch.

The Board of Supervisors will consider the Department budgets this week and next, and they need to hear from voters who say they should not balance the City’s budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens. Please call or fax the Supervisors and tell them not to cut senior services, especially the meals served to hundreds of seniors each weekend by Project Open Hand.

Supervisor              District     Phone          Fax         Room          E Mail
ALIOTO-PIER, Michela  2          554-7752       554-7843     274   Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
AVALOS, John              11         554-6975     554-6979     256 John.Avalos@sfgov.org
CAMPOS, David            9          554-5144       554-6255     272 David.Campos@sfgov.org
CHIU, David                 3          554-7450        554-7454    264 David.Chiu@sfgov.org
CHU, Carmen               4          554-7460         554-7432    260 Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
DALY, Chris                 6          554-7970        554-7974     273 Chris.Daly@sfgov.org
DUFTY, Bevan             8          554-6968         554-6909     268 Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
ELSBERND, Sean          7         554-6516          554-6546     280 Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org
MAR, Eric L.               1         554-7410          554-7415      284 Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org
MAXWELL, Sophie      10       554-7670          554-7674       279 Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
MIRKARIMI, Ross        5         554-7630          554-7634       282 Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org