ANALYSIS: The Next Frontier of Food-insecure Virginians - the Elderly
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
How to meet the needs of everyone who comes to the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank is what Carey Sealy thinks about every day. Her worries are about to get more daunting.
The number people coming for assistance to the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, where she is director of services, rose during COVID and has continued to rise every year thereafter.
One particular group, however, has captured Sealy’s attention — seniors.
The number of people over the age of 60 in need of food is accelerating at a disturbing pace. A swell of these people is expected to crash on the 540’s shores over the next five to ten years, and Sealy is working now to try and figure out how to serve them.
“We’re having to plan now,” Sealy tells the Advance, “because of the shifting demographics and the growing need in this area.”
There are several factors driving the surge. Demographics being perhaps the most important.
The Tell of the Population Pyramids
To visualize how much the senior population is going to grow in our region, we can use a simple tool called a population pyramid. Even a quick look at both Spotsylvania and Stafford counties’ pyramids makes clear that the numbers our community will be facing in the coming decade are going to rise sharply.
By plotting the population total along the X axis, and the age and gender makeup of the population along the Y axis, one can quickly identify a region’s demographic composition, and its coming challenges.
In Spotsylvania County (see the graph above), for example, what jumps out is both the large number of children and young adults ages 10 - 20, and the large numbers of people ages 50 - 60.
The same pattern is evident in Stafford County (see the graph below).
It’s this group of people in their 50s that is going to swell the number of seniors over the next 20 years.
“Our senior population is going to soar” between 2020 and 2030, Pat Holland told the Advance, recently. Her organization, Healthy Generations: Rappahannock Area Agency on Aging, is already experiencing a surge in people needing help.
“We had 180,000 phone calls last year,” she said. “A lot of those are caregivers looking for information for their parents.”
A study by Weldon Cooper for Public Service at the University of Virginia spells out what Holland and Sealy are seeing daily.
“The latest projections,” says its September 2023 report New Virginia Population Projections for 2030-2050, “highlight the shifting age composition in Virginia, with the statewide share of the older adult population (those aged 65 and above) showing continued growth from 12% in 2010, to 16% in 2020, to 19% in 2030 and beyond.”
That growth, the report notes, means “By 2030, 1 in 5 Virginians will be over age 65.”
Again, a look at the population pyramids for 2020 and 2030 make visible what the numbers expose. Our population is aging, and for the foreseeable future, it’s not going to slow.
Distinctive Challenges
The food-insecurity problem for seniors goes beyond their growing numbers, says Holland. There are also issues around transportation, types of food, and general feelings of self-worth.
“Being a senior is tough,” says Holland. “Once you start to age, people don’t always see the value” that you bring. As a result, it’s a group that can be easy to overlook.
That’s where Healthy Generations comes in.
In addition to providing home-delivered meals, and on-site meals through the senior cafes program, Healthy Generations provides education on nutrition programs as well as a senior farmers’ market program.
To tackle travel issues, Holland’s group works on shuttling people to both appointments and the grocery store, and educating them on how to effectively use public transit systems.
“We provide transportation for close to 100 people right now,” she tells the Advance. Unfortunately, she continues, “we’re at capacity and this is what keeps us from growing.”
Meeting the Need
The Food Bank faces transportation problems as well, but of a different variety.
“The most common struggle we hear,” says Sealy, “is that they don’t have transportation.” To fill this need, the Food Bank has developed three methods for getting food to the seniors they serve.
The first are volunteers who give their time to drop off food to seniors in the area. The second is Nick, who is coordinator of senior programs, who personally delivers meals, and third is leveraging an innovative program with DoorDash to get food to seniors.
Originally, Sealy says, “Door Dash was done at no charge” to the food bank. “Now,” she notes, “they charge, but they do offer grants.”
Each delivery costs $9 because the Food Bank sends two boxes, which are charged at $4.50 each.
DoorDash offers grants to groups like the Food Bank, however, and to this point Sealy has benefited from these. “Our first was for a $1,000,” she said. “Now we’re using the $2,500 one. And we just got a $5,000 grant.”
Another delivery option the Food Bank is looking into is Meals on Wheels. A national nonprofit organization, both Culpeper and Richmond already participate in this program. “We are planning to apply,” says Sealy.
As demand grows in coming years, however, so, too, is going to be the need to find more food.
Right now, seniors are primarily served through the Food Bank via a United States Department of Agriculture program called the Commodity Supplemental Food Program.
The key term here, says Sealy, is “supplemental.”
“There’s enough food in a box to feed a senior for seven days,” says Sealy. “Seniors can pick up one box a month.” It’s designed to assist seniors in need with shelf-stable staples.
To participate, people have to be 60 and be at 130% of the federal poverty level.
“Currently,” Sealy says, “we’re giving out 1,000 boxes a month. Our case load is 1,050.”
Ramping Up
If one theme resonates across the service organizations that work with seniors, it’s this. Resources for servicing their feeding needs now are stretched thin. To meet the coming wave of new seniors, innovative solutions and more food are going to have to be found.
Further, providing food is just the start. Seniors’ lack of transportation, challenging medical needs like dialysis, and daunting medical bills all come into play when working with this community.
To rise to the challenge, Holland says, people are going to have to realize that “we’re here, we’re all getting older, and we have to help each other.”
Realizing the importance of having “dignity and respect,” she says, for our seniors “would go a long way” toward helping our community help those vulnerable older individuals who need assistance to make ends meet.
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