MEAL PROGRAMS DEPEND ON LOCAL FUNDING

Area meal programs for senior citizens have increasingly turned to local support for funding, officials say.

"Nutrition funding has remained basically static over the last few years," said Glenda Hood Hoffmeister, administrator of the Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging.

"We are looking more and more to local communities for more support to keep the programs intact," she said.

At this point, she said, the meal programs in Southeast Missouri have not faced the hardships felt by financially strapped programs for senior citizens in some areas of the nation.

Detroit, for example, closed 19 of its 80 nutrition sites last year. Baltimore lost 17. See related story on Page 3A.

Hoffmeister said the 38 senior centers in the 18-county area served by the Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging receive not only federal funding, but also state and local funding.

Nearly half of the funding is local, with state and federal money making up the other half, she said.

Nutrition programs financed under the Older Americans Act must provide services to people 60 and older, regardless of income. But virtually all request donations from those receiving the meals, some based on income.

Home-delivered meal programs and meal programs at nutrition centers have been shutting down nationwide as federal spending on nutrition programs for the elderly fails to keep pace with rising costs and heightened demand from an aging population, senior citizen advocates say.

Hoffmeister said the Older Americans Act was never designed to fully fund services for the elderly.

She said this region has "a very large low-income and frail population."

In Cape Girardeau County, the homebound meal program has been expanded through senior citizens tax funding.

"There are no plans at this time to close any senior centers (in the region) or anything of that sort," said Hoffmeister.

The Cape Girardeau Nutrition Center serves about 150 meals a day, five days a week, including about 50 home-delivered meals, said Jo Nell Lingo, the center's administrator.

Lingo said the center attempts to serve everyone it can. "When you start turning people away that starts putting a sour taste in their mouth," she pointed out.

"Those meals are delivered by volunteers and there is always a need for volunteers to help," said Lingo. "This is another way we cut costs."

The center operates on a $90,000 to $100,000 a year budget, with about a third of that being federal funding. The center is reimbursed 94 cents per meal served to those 60 years of age and older, said Lingo.

The center receives about $8,500 a year from the Area Wide United Way. Local funds, including donations, provide the rest of the funds, she said.

Lingo said center patrons are asked to donate $1.75 per meal they eat to help pay the more-than-$3-per-meal operating costs.

Fund raising is a constant effort, she said. "We've always got something going in-house that the seniors are helping to support," said Lingo.