Marin looks to extend meal service for sheltered seniors
FEMA, state pay restaurants to deliver food to residents
Marin County is expected to continue a program that pays restaurants to deliver meals to residents sheltering for the pandemic when the current funding runs out next month.
“Right now there is FEMA funding through Jan. 7,” said Kari Beuerman, Marin County’s social services director.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is providing most of the money for the “Marin Great Plates” program. It has been authorizing funding at 30day intervals since it was announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom on April 24.
“We’re definitely anticipating another 30-day extension,” Beuerman said.
FEMA is expected to pick up 75% of the cost and the state is slated to pay about 18.5%.
Marin participated in the program from May 18 to June 10 and then dropped out before resuming in September. During the first 30- day period, the county picked up the remaining 6.5% cost of the program, which amounted to a little over $33,000.
When the county resumed the program, it required the participating restaurants to pay the 6.5% out of their share of the reimbursements. However, the county has fronted the entire cost of the program so far, which amounts to over $4.39 million. It is still waiting to be reimbursed by the state and FEMA.
Twenty- one restaurants and caterers are participating in the program. They are delivering three meals
per day, five days a week, to some 600 Marin residents. Those receiving meals must be 65 or older, or at least 60 if they are at high risk from an underlying health condition or exposure to the virus.
Qualified applicants must also live alone or with one other program-eligible adult, earn less than $74,940 per year and be unable to obtain meals through other state or
federal programs.
The county has continued to work with the same restaurants that it initially accepted into the program in May. It has only accepted a few new food recipients as some others dropped out.
“We haven’t advertised openings,” Beuerman said. “We’re not prepared to take on hundreds of new people.”
Some of the participating restaurants are outside Marin County.
“There was low interest in Marin originally because the restaurants were skeptical about their ability to deliver meals,” Beuerman said. “Many did not have that as part of their business model. As a result, we did accept a few vendors that are not specifically Marin-based.”
The county initially dropped out of the program because Benita McLarin, director of the county’s Department of Health and Human Services, said her department was “overly stretched” responding to the pandemic and preparing for the fire season.
But county supervisors directed McLarin to rethink her priorities after listening to impassioned pleas from restaurant owners and seniors who had participated in the program.
When they met on Dec. 15, supervisors approved fronting another $1.77 million to keep Marin in the program through March 5 if FEMA and the state continue to guarantee reimbursement.
“If it weren’t for Great Plates we would be psychologically bummed out,” said Allan Levinson of San Rafael.
Levinson and his wife, both in their 70s, have been
receiving breakfast, lunch and dinner through the program since it started. He recently completed radiation and chemotherapy for esophageal cancer and is coping with prostate cancer.
he couple — he’s a rabbi and she’s a retired dentist — have been sheltering at home since the pandemic began.
“We don’t go out at all,” he said. “We don’t let anybody in. There is no psychological or emotional safety net. You can’t go out with your friends; you can’t go with your neighbors; you can’t go to a movie; you can’t have people over.”
Great Plates has provided “a ray of sunshine during a very dark and challenging time,” Levinson said.
“It’s not food-bank food,” he said. “It’s crab Louie I had. I’m going to have filet mignon tonight. It keeps us up.”
Participating restaurateurs are equally enthusiastic about Great Plates.
“It’s been a lifeline for us keeping our kitchen staff here and going, especially right now over the holidays, as well as helping our community with our seniors,” said Jeff Scharosch, general manager of Spinnaker restaurant in Sausalito.
“I consider myself to be very fortunate and blessed to have the program,” said Michael Freed, owner of the Bogie’s Too restaurant in San Rafael. “It has literally saved my business.”
Rozanna Ogneva, who operates a San Rafael catering business, said if it weren’t for Great Plates she
would have no customers now or in the near future.
“It has saved my life for now,” Ogneva said.