SAN FERNANDO : Council to Try to Aid Senior Food Program

The San Fernando City Council will try to rescue a special nutrition program for senior citizens at Las Palmas Park that has found itself swamped with hungry residents wanting food.

On Monday, council members will weigh a proposal that could inject as much as $9,500 in funding to the fledgling low-cost lunch program, which began in early September but has had to turn away customers because of a lack of food and staffing.

The lion’s share of the money, about $6,000, would go toward a formal contract with the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, a nonprofit group that has been serving the meals, said Jess Margarito, director of Recreation and Community Services for the city of San Fernando.

Since September, the group has been serving meals by stretching leftover funding from its county-funded program in Recreation Park, also in San Fernando, and soliciting donations from the senior citizens. The interfaith council hopes to get more county funding next fiscal year, relieving San Fernando of its financial burden.

In addition to the $6,000 for food expenses, the council also will consider allocating $3,500 to pay for a staff position for the interfaith council, said Margarito.

“The reason it’s really important is it was being run by mostly volunteers, with some support from city staff and Valley Interfaith, which was pulling people away from other jobs,” said Margarito. The interfaith council’s current director of the Las Palmas program must balance her tasks at the park with her responsibility to coordinate delivery of meals at homes, he noted.

Staffing the program with someone from the Recreation and Community Services Department would have been more expensive because San Fernando pays its employees about $2.50 more per hour than the council does, said Margarito. Over the eight months of the funding commitment, it would cost several thousand dollars, he said.

Volunteers and staffers on Friday expressed relief that help might be on the way.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Kathy Hargrave, Outreach Coordinator for Valley Interfaith, who has been directing the program. “There’s a lot involved in it. It’s not just come in and eat. These are hot meals.”