Lea este artículo en español aquí.
After five months running the senior meals program in San Benito County, Martha’s Kitchen is warning that its current level of service is not sustainable.
Executive Director Bill Lee said while the nonprofit is now providing more food and serving 50% more clients than the previous provider, cost increases along with Hollister and San Benito County’s inability to provide funding or obtain grant funding is making it difficult to keep up with the demand.
“It’s a perfect storm,” Lee said. “There is an increase in demand and not the same level of funding.”
Lee said he took on the contract knowing he would need an additional $140,000 to cover the cost of providing expanded services for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. He said he assumed Martha’s Kitchen would receive the same level of funding from local organizations that previously supported senior meals services, but that he was leery to ask about it because of the sensitivity of taking over the contract from a longtime community provider and didn’t specifically ask about it. That local funding has not materialized, leaving Martha’s Kitchen on its own.
“We’re covering the shortfall,” he said. “We can’t do that forever.”
In May, the Seniors Council of Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties awarded Martha’s Kitchen $337,000 to provide and deliver lunch to seniors for fiscal year 2025-26.
According to a seniors council staff report, the funds are eligible for annual extensions through the 2028-29 fiscal year “provided services meet the expectations and requirements of the AAA [Area Agency on Aging] and the provider wishes to continue with the services.”
The services were previously provided by Hollister-based nonprofit Jovenes De Antano.
Seniors Council Executive Director Clay Kempf said the funding comes with a 15% ($50,000) local matching requirement, which is Martha’s Kitchen’s responsibility.
Lee said the local funding that was previously allocated to Jovenes De Antano is not being provided to Martha’s Kitchen. In addition to San Benito County, the Community Foundation for San Benito County and the Health Trust previously provided funds, he said.
Community Foundation for San Benito County CEO Cassandra Kartashov said the organization generally receives more funding requests than they can fund and that applications go through a competitive process. She said awardees vary from year to year.
According to Lee, the Health Trust and the county previously allocated a combined $120,000 per year toward the services, but the Health Trust funds were from COVID-19 and those have dried up, while the county is not providing any funding this fiscal year.
He also said the Community Development Block Grants from the state are no longer available because the city and the county don’t have a certified Housing Element. Hollister previously applied for the grant and awarded it to Jovenes De Antano.
The Housing Element is a state-required planning tool where jurisdictions identify areas for future residential development. Hollister and San Benito County have been out of compliance since the beginning of 2024.
Jovenes de Anatano was last awarded $213,000 from that grant for the 2020-21 and 2022-23 fiscal years. The county allocated $45,000 from its own funds for those services for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Lee said he was counting on pursuing the grant but after discussions with city and county administration, and additional research, they all found out Hollister and San Benito County were ineligible to apply.
Kempf said Jovenes De Antano did not always receive the block grant but that “it’s a sizable grant when they did get it.”
Among the new costs for Martha’s Kitchen are rent for space at the Pauline Valdivia Memorial Community Center. Hollister began charging rent starting in July and Martha’s Kitchen is now paying $31,550 a year.
Jovenes de Antano also began paying rent in July after decades of occupying the space rent-free while providing services to seniors.
“That’s a big chunk that otherwise goes to meals,” Kempf said.
Kempf said Martha’s Kitchen is not alone in its funding challenges and called it a national “crisis in senior services.” He said funding for nutrition services that were made available during COVID have disappeared, but the demand has increased.
He said the unmet need will continue to increase as the senior population continues to grow.
“The end of COVID did not end senior hunger and it did not end the need for additional meals that were provided,” Kempf said. “As a result, the Martha’s Kitchens of the world, it’s not a unique problem for them. They are trying to serve more people than ever with less resources.”
He said Santa Cruz County has a waiting list for senior services for the first time ever and that Jovenes De Antano would have been in the same situation had it been selected to continue providing the services.
“It’s not Martha’s Kitchen’s fault that local funding is disappearing,” he said.
Lee said Martha’s Kitchen will continue to provide the same level of service through June. That includes five days of in-person lunches in Hollister, one day at San Juan Bautista and delivering seven days of meals.
“We’re not turning anyone away,” he said, adding that Martha’s Kitchen is now providing meals to seniors who had been on the waiting list for several years, including seniors who had been on the list since 2021.
Next steps
Lee said if Martha’s Kitchen doesn’t obtain additional funds, services might be reduced starting in July 2026. He said it’s unclear what that would look like.
He said it might be reducing the number of seniors it serves or reducing the number of days for in-person meals.
“We haven’t explored that yet,” he said. “We don’t want to go there. We don’t want seniors to not get a hot lunch and visit their friends.”
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. Producing local news is expensive, and community support keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service nonprofit news.