White River Junction
“That’s been a little bit part of the challenge,” said Ashley Doolittle, associate director of academic and service engagement at Dartmouth College. “The way that the connection and social interaction is facilitated through congregate meals is important.”
To help show the impact of the meals, a group of Dartmouth students was matched with Senior Solutions, the Springfield, Vt.-based nonprofit formerly known as the Council on Aging for Southeastern Vermont, through the college’s Social Impact Practicum initiative, which Doolittle directs.
Dartmouth senior Mallory Rutigliano worked with four other students to create a policy paper, video and presentation on congregate meals for Senior Solutions. First, the students conducted a “very thorough and exhaustive search of the literature” available on congregate meals.
They found, in part, that group meals can help seniors who suffer from depression, loss of mobility and malnutrition.
“We tried to make an argument that was scientifically based as to the mental and physical impacts of socialization and the importance of the congregate meals,” Rutigliano said.
In February, the students also attended a congregate meal at the Thompson Senior Center in Woodstock.
“It was a really great experience,” Rutigliano said. “We found that the anecdotal evidence that the senior citizens were providing was consistent with the scientific literature review.”
Some senior citizens told the students that, without congregate meals, they would be lonely, Rutigliano said, and they noted “how they often don’t eat well when they aren’t going to the congregate meal.”
In addition, the seniors often are able to have interactions at the meals that would be harder for them to make otherwise.
“The congregate meals are often the only way they’re able to meet with other people in their extended community,” Rutigliano said.
“Congregate meals are often overlooked,” said Bruce Lyndes, communications director for Senior Solutions. Services like home meal delivery, he said, often attract more attention — and funding — while the value and availability of congregate meals is not as well known.
“This isn’t going away,” he said, “because the baby boomer generation is aging.”
Carol Stamatakis, executive director for Senior Solutions, has been sharing the Dartmouth students’ report with colleagues who work to make the case about the importance of congregate meals.
“It could help us with town funding or other types of funding, or public policy if we want to explain to a senator or member of Congress why congregate meals are important and should be funded,” Stamatakis said.
More than 36,000 congregate meals were served at locations in Ascutney, Hartland, Springfield, Windsor, Thetford and Hartford in the last fiscal year, Stamatakis said.
In New Hampshire, about 40,000 congregate meals were served at the Upper Valley, Horse Meadow and Mascoma Area senior centers and Orford Area Senior Services, said Roberta Berner, executive director for the Grafton County Senior Citizens Council.
Rutigliano said she hopes the work she and her classmates did will bring more attention to the value of congregate meals and help senior citizens throughout the area.
Stamatakis said the effort is about building a stronger community.
“It’s not about sticking food in someone’s mouth,” she said.
Editor’s note: For more information about congregate meals in the area, visit www.seniorsolutionsvt.org/meals-nutrition/community-meals or www.gcscc.org.
