Chefs and volunteers at a North Vancouver seniors centre are helping older adults get easier access to affordable and nutritious food.
The food services program at Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centre offers low-cost, full course lunch meals to older folks Monday to Friday and has been running since their doors opened more than 50 years ago.
Annwen Loverin, executive director of the centre, said the decades-long program was created to provide cheap, tasty food to seniors who may not be able to access it otherwise.
“There are a lot of reasons why older adults might not be eating well,” Loverin said. “That could be physical difficulties standing and preparing food, it could be other health conditions that make it difficult to eat well and then finances play a big role in how well people can eat.”
The Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centre offers more than 70 programs, activities and services for adults aged 55 and older. Their programs range from educational and physical to creative and social.
For the food program, seniors are served a full meal of an entree, salad, soup and dessert for $14, or just the entree for $10. Meals offered vary from shepherd’s pie and lasagna to lamb shank and salmon with tiger prawns. There are also less expensive options, Loverin said, with items like soup and crackers for $3 or a sandwich for $5.
The centre serves roughly 350 lunches and 380 drinks and snacks every week. According to Silver Harbour’s website, each year there are approximately 37,000 visits for meals, amounting to about one quarter of all annual visits to the centre.
In a study released earlier this year, researchers from the University of Waterloo found that one-third of adults aged 55 or older are nutritionally at risk, a number that concerns Loverin.
“We are very concerned about the number and proportion of seniors who are at nutritional risk, which is a precursor to malnutrition,” she said. “When seniors have access to healthy, affordable and accessible food in a social environment … they can maintain and improve their physical and mental health and well-being, and therefore experience a good quality of life.”
Food program offers seniors a chance to socialize, executive director says
Another vital aspect of the program to one’s health is socializing with others, Loverin said.
The food services program is offered in a way that builds connections with other people, whether that be existing friends or making new ones, eating together in one place, she said.
“We all know that social isolation is very unhealthy, including for seniors, and so that’s why we try to keep social connection at the core of everything we do,” Loverin said.
In a report, the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health said as many as 41 per cent of Canadians aged 50 and older are at risk of social isolation, and up to 58 per cent in the age group have experienced loneliness.
Hugh Mitchell has been using the food services at Silver Harbour for the past two and a half years, joining the program to have that social connection in the community.
“There are a lot of people like myself who are living on their own, and the worst thing that people that are living on their own can do is to stay at home and not get out,” said Mitchell, an 86-year-old North Vancouver resident.
“It’s not just the fact that you’re getting nourishment, but it’s also because you’re socializing,” he added. “You’re sitting down with different people and you’re learning about things that you maybe hadn’t thought about for years.”
Mitchell said he finds it challenging to make food at home for just himself, creating a lot of leftovers he can’t always finish. If people cannot finish their food while dining at Silver Harbour, they can take leftovers back home, reducing waste.
But now, Mitchell has continued to spread the word about the food program, like how he heard about Silver Harbour.
“I recommend it highly to people,” he said. “It’s very good to be able to interact with people and it’s very positive. I think it’s things like [this] that keeps people like me going.”
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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