Group A: Seniors who are depressed
Federal Nutrition Program:
Commodity Supplemental Food program (CSFP) for seniors: This is a Federally funded program, which works to improve the health of elderly people at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA foods. CSFP serves. Since our program is a senior day care center where we work with seniors, I think CSFP will be a beneficial program that will provide monthly food assistance specially targeted at low-income seniors. CSFP offers free, nutritious foods to seniors. Our program will involve seniors suffering from depression and a healthy nutritious diet will play an important role in their mental, physical and emotional well-being. The supplemental program can provide quality foods for our seniors at the center such as cheese, non-fat milk, canned fruits and vegetables, cereals, fruit juices, rice/pasta and dried beans. It also provides referrals to health care and social services agencies for other needed services.
I do not think the DOD fresh produce program will be useful for the seniors since it focuses on providing schools with a wider variety of fresh produce and our program involves a senior day care center.
State Nutrition program:
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – I chose this program because this is another program that provides monthly benefits which can be used to purchase food at authorized retail food stores. This will be a great help for those seniors at our day care center that need assistance in purchasing food. We can do weekly shopping tours with the seniors in our program where they can learn how to purchase healthy foods using their SNAP benefits. SNAP also provides funding for home-delivered meals to frail older persons who are unable to prepare meals for themselves as well as supports nutrition counseling, nutrition education and congregate meals. We can have congregate meals at our senior centers which will provide nutritional meals as well as a social atmosphere.
City Nutrition Program:
At the city level, the NYC Department for the Aging (DFTA) has many programs for the seniors and one of them which will be useful for our program is the Home-delivered meals program. This program is for the elderly aged 60 years or older who have