"Senior Boxes"

Written by: Kate Snyder, Development and Donor Communications Coordinator

Officially, they are part of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), but around our Hunger Programs, they're just called "Senior Boxes." The goal of the CSFP program is to provide extra food to certain low-income populations, including pregnant women, new mothers, young children, and seniors. It's similar to the WIC program, but instead of providing food vouchers, CSFP actually provides boxes of food.

Starting this April, we began receiving monthly delivers of Senior Boxes via the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Currently 31 of our Meals on Wheels and Food Pantry clients receive the boxes, which contain a variety of food staples, designed to provide supplemental nutrition.

For example, July's boxes contained:
Mixed vegetables
Tomatoes
Carrots
Spinach
Apple Juice
Tomato Juice
Orange Juice
Applesauce
Mixed canned fruit
Tuna
Evaporated milk
Peanut butter
Instant milk
Spaghetti
Bran Flakes
and Tasteos

Each recipient also got a block of reduced fat cheese. And just to be clear - each box contained all of those things!

That's quite a good supply of very healthy and diverse foods and it makes a real difference to our elderly clients who live on fixed incomes. And because the CSFP is a federal program, we don't have to fund the boxes. All we have to do is identify eligible clients and make sure they have a means of receiving their boxes.