Lodi extends Great Plates Delivered program
Lodi senior citizens who are unable to access meals at home will have another month to benefit from a state program that helps older adults and local restaurants.
The Lodi City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a one-month extension of the Great Plates Delivered program at a special meeting.
Initially targeted to expire Aug. 6, the State of California announced late Friday it was extending the Great Plates Delivered program for at least another month, city manager Steve Schwabauer said.
The program, which began in June, allows the City of Lodi to work with local restaurants to deliver three meals a day to local seniors, boosting local businesses while ensuring that one of the groups most at risk for COVID-19 has enough to eat.
“I think it’s a great program,” Mayor Doug Kuehne said. “I think it should continue — if we can afford it — continue on as long as we can.”
Initially, the city fronted the cost of the program to the tune of about $100,000. According to a Wednesday staff report, the additional cost for the four-week
extension is about $560,000. However, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the California Office of Emergency Services will reimburse the city at a total rate of 93.75%, or $525,000.
Vice Mayor Alan Nakanishi supported extending the program, with the caveat that seniors who are being served should be warned that the service many not be provided after the final date of Sept. 9.
“If the federal government doesn’t bring in the money, we’re going to have to say no,” Nakanishi said. “So, I would forewarn people who are recipients, that this may be the last month we do this, so they can plan ahead.
And next month, if we’re still able to do it, then we should do it.”
Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce said while the program was a great benefit to the city and its seniors, she questioned how much money the city had put into implementation, if it was coming from the General Fund, and how the city might afford the program moving forward.
Assistant city manager Andrew Keys said nearly $838,000 in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act has been one source of funding that has allowed the city to maintain program costs.
“It can go to numerous things COVID-related, including first responder response to COVID-19, which would allow us to use it for broad range of police and fire services existing
within the city,” he said. “It can also be used to help the General Fund.”
The city partnered with the LOEL Center to enroll seniors into the program, then worked with local restaurants such as The Dancing Fox Winery and Brewery, Village Coffee Shop and the Brick House Restaurant & Lounge.
Lodi was one of the first cities in California to implement the program, and the first to do so in San Joaquin County. Some 300 Lodi senior citizens benefit from the program.
“It’s a great program. I’ve said that all along,” Mounce said. “I just don’t want us to get to a point where we somehow let it get away from us that our all-in costs out of our pocket may not be manageable, especially as we move forward down the road of the effects of COVID-19 to our budget.”