Granny’s Market rolled into town Tuesday, just in time for Anaheim resident Adeline Correa to fill her empty fridge.
The market isn’t a new grocery store. It’s a traveling refrigerated truck stocked with healthy, fresh food (some of which is grown locally) that is available at no cost to seniors with limited incomes such as Correa.
It is the second vehicle to roll out in the Second Harvest Food Bank’s Park-It Market program that is aimed at getting nutritious food to local seniors in an easily accessible and also social format. April is also Senior Hunger Awareness Month. The first of the market trucks rolled out in 2018, but this second one has been improved, officials said, with better design elements, such as lower shelving, for the older users.
It’s important to deliver food in a dignified way, Second Harvest Food Bank CEO Claudia Bonilla Keller said. Now people can walk up to glass doors on the truck — much like the refrigerated section in a grocery store — and select perishable items they want.
“It’s human nature to want to pick the foods you like and that are culturally appropriate for you,” Bonilla Keller said. “In the end, this also reduces food waste.”
Correa, 71, said she works one day a week and otherwise lives on her Social Security benefits.
“I look forward to getting the basics — milk, eggs, bread and chicken,” she said of the weekly service.
As she wheeled her grocery cart back to her apartment, she said she is happy she doesn’t have to ask any of her four children for help.
“The senior demographic of folks over 65 is the largest in the county and we’re bracing for a silver tsunami,” Bonilla Keller said of the medical and financial needs of the older residents of Orange County.
The end of COVID-era benefits, inflation and the cost of living in the county all contribute to food insecurity, she said.
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“Food comes down last,” she said of fluctuations in costs for daily living. “And if you’re on a fixed income that’s going to hurt.”
Beyond addressing food needs, the mobile service gets people out into the sunshine, Bonilla Keller said. “They see some of their neighbors, so there’s a social aspect to it.”
Registered dietician Lisa Gibson, who holds a master’s degree in clinical nutrition, said the Granny’s Market is stocked with nutritious offerings, but 20% of the available food is just “for fun.”
“Eating is social and you don’t want to feel you’re on a strict diet because if you’re on a diet you’ll want to go off a diet,” she said, and added, “As we age, we need fewer calories but we need equal or more nutrients. … We need to eat protein and exercise.”
The Park-It Markets, which visit senior communities and centers around Orange County on a regular schedule, has been serving about 2,500 people each month.
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