Buellton Senior Center Meals on Wheels: A lifeline for seniors | Judith Dale | Columns

The Santa Ynez Valley can be proud of how it takes care of its seniors. Four organizations have been established to help meet the needs of older citizens in our Valley: Atterdag Village (formerly Solvang Lutheran Home) established in 1953; Buellton Senior Center, established in 1977; Solvang Senior Center, established in 1978; and People Helping People, established in 1992.

This article will focus on the Buellton Senior Center and its Meals on Wheels program.

Research shows that home-delivered meal programs, such as Meals on Wheels, significantly improve diet quality, increase nutrient intakes, reduce food insecurity and improve the quality of life for seniors receiving the meals. Older people living alone are twice as likely to have food and hunger issues compared to married seniors.

For many Meals on Wheels recipients, the person delivering the meal is often the only person they will see that day. This is vitally important, not only for the social interaction with the senior but for safety reasons too. Volunteers delivering meals are instructed to call the Buellton Senior Center immediately if the previous day’s meal has not been picked up.

Two weeks ago, this was the case.

After getting a call from the delivery volunteer, staff from the center went to the residence and knocked on the door. No one answered, and there was no response from knocking on the windows. The police were called to break into the house, where they found the 90-year-old resident dead. Who knows how long the individual would have gone undiscovered without the meal delivery.

In another example last year, an elderly man had fallen between the wall and a large piece of furniture. He was trapped and could not get up. If the person delivering his meal had not noticed that the previous day’s meal had not been picked up and reported it, he would not have been discovered.

As it turns out, Buellton Senior Center staff went over, knocked on the doors and windows, and the man was able to yell for help. The police came, broke in and the man was rescued. He had been lying there for over 30 hours. If not for the meal delivery, he would have remained trapped there undiscovered.

Not only are the Meals on Wheels program a safety program, but it is often the only social contact seniors have. Volunteers deliver the meals and often take a few moments to visit. This social interaction was critical during the COVID-19 pandemic when seniors were hesitant to go out in public. The delivery volunteers can keep a safe distance outside the door while visiting the seniors.

Forty percent of seniors say they are having trouble keeping socially connected and 1 in 4 seniors over 65 reported experiencing anxiety or depression during the pandemic.

In addition to the nutritional, social and safety needs, studies have shown that Meals on Wheels programs reduce government expenditures by reducing the need for seniors to use hospitals, nursing homes or other expensive community-based services. This is an important fact as 12,000 people turn 60 every day in the United States. Your support is needed to provide our seniors with the care they deserve.

Upcoming community event

On Thursday, March 17, the Buellton Senior Center will participate in the nationwide March for Meals to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Nutrition Program signed by President Nixon on March 22, 1972. Also, the march is designed to call attention to hunger in our Valley.

Each weekday, Buellton Senior Center volunteers deliver 372 meals to the homes of seniors in the Buellton and Los Alamos areas. In addition, the Buellton Senior Center has a daily farmers market where anyone in need of food can come to pick up fresh produce.

The public is invited to join all or part of the Buellton Senior Center’s March for Meals on March 17.

The march will start at the Buellton Post Office parking lot and end at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez, for a total of 14 miles.

The march is broken into five parts:

• 10 a.m. Buellton to Solvang Park (3.7 miles);
• 11:30 a.m. Solvang Park to Holy Grounds Coffee Shop on Alamo Pintado (3.5 miles);
• 1:15 p.m. Holy Grounds to Summerset Farms on Baseline Ave (4.4 miles);
• 3 p.m. Summerset Farms to Dennee’s Interior Design in Santa Ynez (1.5 miles);
• 3:45 p.m. Dennee’s to Maverick Saloon (.3 miles);
• 4 p.m. Arrive at Maverick Saloon for a celebration with music by Bill Agin and Territorial Law and the option to purchase a $15 fried chicken dinner.

The general public is invited to the celebration. Times at each location are approximate. There will be refreshments at each stop. Participants can walk all or any part of the route.

To donate online, go to https://fundly.com/march-for-meals-on wheels. 

For more information about the March for Meals event, call the center at 805-688-4571.

Support Meals on Wheels

Last year, the Buellton Senior Center gave out over 2 million pounds of donated food in the bag and farmers market programs — all at no cost to the recipients. However, most Meals on Wheels food purchased is not free to the center.

As much as 73% of the Buellton Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels recipients are low-income and are on scholarship for their meals, and while food costs have gone up in addition to the need for food, the center has reported feeling a financial squeeze to meet a growing demand. 

In addition to the center’s Meals on Wheels Program, every Monday, it has a program that allows low-income people to drop off a bag by Friday. The center fills it with fresh produce and nonperishable food items. Over 500 people each week take advantage of this program.

Without public support, the Meals on Wheels program cannot continue at its present level as costs rise.

Please consider supporting the Meals on Wheels program by sponsoring a walker or donating directly to the Buellton Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels Program. The address to send a check is: P.O. Box 1946, Buellton, CA 93427.

All donations stay local and are tax-deductible. 

In future articles, I will cover the excellent programs and services at Atterdag Village, the Solvang Senior Center and People Helping People.

While California has become the No. 1 agricultural state in the country, producing over $50 billion in farm products, Santa Barbara County ranks 12th in the state for agricultural production among 48 counties.

Strawberries are the No. 1 crop in Santa Barbara County as of 2020, with over 10,500 acres planted countywide at a value of $727,444,000. Avoc…

Recently we had relatives visiting from Kansas. Due to COVID-19, rather than doing the usual “touristy” things such as eating out, wine tastin…

La Gaviota means seagull in Spanish.

At one time, Hollister and his partners, the Dibblee Brothers, owned all the land between Refugio Beach and Point Conception. They owned all the land grants around Point Concepcion, the Ortega family’s Refugio Grant, the La Purisima Mission lands and the San Julian Ranch.

What do Foxen Canyon Road in Los Olivos, the community of Sisquoc, the American army capturing the Santa Barbara Presidio in 1846, an elementary school and the Foxen Vineyard and Winery all have in common?

The forest contributes nearly $103.4 million annual revenue to local businesses who gain from people visiting from all over the nation to hike, bike and camp in our mountains. 

We often overlook and take for granted the importance of the river to our past development and more importantly to our future development and quality of life.

The Santa Ynez Valley is a wonderful place for children to grow up. We have excellent schools, churches, nonprofits and sports organizations t…

The area around Guadalupe has evolved through many stages — from Chumash villages, to Spanish rule under Mission La Purisima, to a Mexican land grant, an immigrant farming community, a railroad town, and a modern agricultural city.

A neighbor who recently moved to the Santa Ynez Valley asked me about the Santa Barbara Channel and the islands she sees off the coast. I told…

Santa Catalina Island (usually called just Catalina) is the third largest of the California Channel Islands — only Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa a…

Originally, I was only going to write about the five islands in the Channel Islands National Park. However, some military personnel stationed …

This is the third and final article in a series covering the five islands that make up the Channel Islands National Park. The three remaining …

In my last article, I discussed the Santa Barbara Channel and its islands in general. This article will focus on two of five islands in Channe…

So far we are good in Santa Barbara County, but until the first major rain, we are still in danger as our last major fires were during the months of November (Cave Fire) and December (Thomas Fire).

With over 4 million acres having burned so far this year in California, we have not had any major fires in Santa Barbara County. But with all the hot weather we have had and no rain in months, we are still in danger.

Due to arson or carelessness, 430,088 acres and 701 structures burned in these fires spanning 22 years.

We have the perfect setting for fires: thousands of acres of wilderness with rugged terrain and few roads; rainy winter weather that allows grass and brush to grow, followed by months of hot, dry weather; prevailing winds as well as sundowner winds; and people, who are the cause of most fires.

This new Space Force opens the way for Vandenberg to become a spaceport that can launch not only military missiles and satellites, but private and commercial projects as well.

La Purisima Mission is the 11th of the 21 missions founded in California.

Las Cruses was a small community that no longer exists, but it has an important history. 

This is the bookend article to looking back at Buellton during the decade of the 1920s. This article looks at the establishment of Solvang during that same time.

Judith Dale discusses the two major events in the 1920s that set the groundwork for what the city of Buellton is today.

Judith Dale looks back to 1920, offering a timeline of progress the U.S. has made over the last 100 years. In most areas such as life expectancy, industry, technology, and position in the world, the U.S. has come a long way. However, many of the social/cultural challenges the country faced in the 1920s, are still with us today.

This month marks the 215th year anniversary of the Old Mission Santa Inés, established in September of 1804. The mission was officially named …

Former mayor of Buellton, Judith Dale built her career in education and continues to serve the local community as Santa Barbara County 3rd District representative to the Library Advisory Board and board member of the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital Foundation. She can be reached at judith@hwy246.net