A couple of weeks ago I joined some friends for lunch at the Senior Dining Center at the Mother Lode Lion’s Hall in Diamond Springs. Lunch is served on weekdays (excepting holidays) from noon until 12:30 p.m. but a number of seniors arrive early just to socialize, something as important as nutrition for their well being.
In addition to lunch, there are a wide variety of activities held at the Senior Dining Centers throughout the county which are located at Placerville, Pollock Pines, Greenwood, Somerset, El Dorado Hills, South Lake Tahoe and this one in Diamond Springs. For more information call 530-621-6160.
There are also scheduled day trips and more. Call the senior activities coordinator at 530-621-6158 for information on these.
Back to the meal, they are all prepared by the county nutritionist especially for the person over 60, the minimum age to participate. There is a suggested donation of $3 for the meal which was served on real plates with real metal ware (you have to bus your own dishes, like I did in the Army).
The meal that day was cashew chicken, brown rice, Oriental vegetables, a fortune cookie, juice and milk and it was very good. The monthly menu is posted in this paper or you can go to the Webpage at edcgov.us/HumanServices and click on Senior Services to download it.
The reason I am mentioning this program, which includes home delivered meals to shut-ins, is that it is always under fire when budget cuts come up.
We have a lot of senior citizens locally and many of them, including a number of veterans, are on a low fixed income in a crazy economy that doesn’t seem to be going well. They rely on this as their major meal for the day, or take home half of it for dinner, and, it isn’t that big a meal for someone of my size and activity level.
Thank you Board of Supervisors for again keeping this program.