News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Sparta-White County Activity Center will start offering lunches for seniors every weekday starting Monday.
Director Jayne Guy said they have gone through health inspections, hired and trained new staff, and developed menus with UCDD. Guy said they just received their first large food delivery and are preparing for the first reoccurring lunch since the center re-opened in May.
“Not only is the nutrition itself important but also the congregate meals where people are together not eating alone, eating together,” Guy said. “There’s a lot of information out there that shows that that really helps in the vitalization of the older community.”
Guy said their kitchen manager has set up the program so that it will not be a strain the rest of the center’s staff. Guy said the lunches will hopefully draw more people in and get them involved with other activities at the center.
“It’s just a left foot, right foot process,” Guy said. “We’re just going to, as we incur challenges, change what we’re doing based on that.”
Guy said seniors have to be registered as a participant at the center to be eligible but do not need to sign up for each meal.
“We’ve kind of managed that based on the most people that we have on certain days during the week,” Guy said. “We think that’s going to look like our numbers. As it grows then we’ll just adjust along the way with that.”
Guy said the lunch program is supported by the state and the federal government working with and through UCDD.
“We have contracts through them that we develop and they are able to reimburse us for the meals that we do serve,” Guy said. “We get a certain reimbursement for that so that the people can have some nice free hot meals.”
Guy said once the lunch program is active and steady they hope to start providing home delivery meals at some point next year.
