Older adults on fixed incomes can struggle to afford groceries after paying for housing, utilities and medical care.Getting food can be as difficult for older people due to disabilities, limited transportation and isolation.Assistance does not reach everyone who needs it, such as those who fall between poverty thresholds and the cost of living.
The last few years have been tricky for Patricia and Rick Earl, a Magna, Utah, couple who married 52 years ago when both were 16. Until recently, they were very self-sufficient. But Rick has pancreatic cancer. She beat colon cancer, but has seizures that keep her from working or driving. And while their four adult kids help when they can, money’s tight and without regular visits from Salt Lake County’s Meals on Wheels program, Patricia doesn’t know what they would do.
They own a single-wide trailer, rent the land on which it is parked, and pay for the utilities, but on a fixed income and with medical costs, the food budget is very slim.
“We both worked and we saved money,” she said, noting how much their trajectory changed with their cancers. Rick also needs dialysis three times a week and drives himself, which creates some social interaction but uses precious resources to meet rising gas prices.
Owen Andrus delivers meals to Patricia Earl in Magna on Thursday, June 25, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
When he comes home, their dog Copper stands by the front door and howls with joy — heartwarming, but not much of a social life. They get lonely, so occasionally they go to a nearby senior center to visit with people, which raises their spirits, she said.
Most days, the Meals on Wheels driver is the couple’s connection to the outside world.
The Earls are among millions of older U.S. adults who are “food insecure,” which AARP describes as “an economic and social condition of limited access to food that may lead to hunger.”
It’s a national challenge. But how big may soon be out of reach. The Trump administration has opted to cancel Household Food Security Reports, which have tracked food insecurity for 30 years. That move follows new restrictions on food stamps, including work requirements that are expected to reduce food assistance rolls as well.
Trapped in the gap
Rick Earl pours a carton of milk into plastic goblets in Magna on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. The Earls receive milk and seven meals a week from Meals on Wheels. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Older people who are hungry or at risk often live within what the “Elder Index” by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston calls “the gap.”
That well-populated gap includes those over 65 who have incomes above the federal poverty line, where they may be eligible for some government assistance, but below what they would need to comfortably meet minimal standards in five categories: housing, healthcare, transportation, various essentials like cleaning supplies and clothing and, of course, food. The index defines a very bare-bones, location-centric county-by-county cost-of-living metric.
It was created to help spark conversation from a policy, research and practical perspective, said Caitlin Coyle, director of the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute.
Michelle M. Putnam, director of the institute, notes that gappers in its index are often invisible and may be using “all these different strategies to deal with being in that space where they don’t really have what they need but they’re not poor. They’ve found strategies to make it work.”
Others are poor. And for both, food security is elusive.
Hidden hunger
A resident of the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise watches as boxes of free food get unloaded in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. The Utah Food Bank offers free monthly food assistance for low-income seniors aged 60 and older primarily through the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the UFB Food Box Program. The food bank delivers more than 37,000 food boxes containing a week’s worth of food. “It really does take a village to take care of our folks. They try to schedule the deliveries for close to the time when Social Security is apt to have run out,” Ginnette Bott, executive director of the Utah Food Bank. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Ginette Bott, president and CEO of the Utah Food Bank, an affiliate of Feeding America’s 200 food banks nationwide, said her food bank helps stock more than 300 pantries large and small in Utah’s 29 counties.
Bott said across ages, there are almost a half-million people in Utah at risk of missing a meal today. Among the still-hungry are older adults.
How many older adults are hungry or at risk varies depending on the source. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that 9.3% of U.S. households who have someone age 65 or older were food insecure in 2023, the rate 11% among households with an older adult living alone.
Feeding America data from 2024 found 12 million older adults and seniors age 50 plus struggle with hunger, about 7.7 million of them 60 and older.
Residents of the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise return to their apartments after receiving food through the monthly Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
A recent AARP analysis suggests that food insecurity among older adults has increased since 2021 due in part to rising food prices and the end of pandemic-related benefits. Others add that inflation and the loss of federal assistance for some ages 50 to 64 pressures food budgets. There are sometimes stark disparities in food insecurity. Older white and Asian adults over 50 “consistently have the lowest prevalence.” For seniors, food insecurity was higher among females, those living alone and rural residents.
Utah’s seniors are better off than those in many states. Nearly 6% of those 60 and older were food insecure in 2023, according to Feeding America data, 10th-lowest among the states. The national rate was nearly 1 in 10.
A January 2026 report on just Salt Lake County by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute found more than 7,600 households that include older adults rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help afford groceries.
But a striking statistic is that 7 in 10 older SNAP-eligible Utahns have not enrolled, per studies by the Urban Institute and the National Council on Aging. In some northern Utah counties — Cache, Morgan, Rich and Summit — that number rises to 84%.
Filling the food wagon
John McCarthy gets a box of food at Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
John McCarthy, 74, pulls the wagon he bought for $50 on Amazon the 7 1/2 blocks from his subsidized apartment at St. Mark’s Tower in downtown Salt Lake City to Hildegarde’s Food Pantry, run by the Cathedral Church of St. Mark. The line stretches down the block and starts forming well before doors open, folks ready to show IDs and sign in.
At 11:02 a.m., a volunteer wearing a Pearl Jam shirt declares it’s “show time, glow time, go time!”
Today, offerings include ham, cookies, bananas, canned food, grapes and eggs. As those getting food leave — the process takes minutes — most sort through their box quickly and put food they won’t or can’t eat on a table outside for others to grab. McCarthy doesn’t; he will haul it back to the little pantry at St. Mark’s Tower for his neighbors. Not all food-insecure older adults have a wagon or the ability to drive or to walk a mile to get food.
John McCarthy fills a community food pantry at St. Mark’s Tower with food that he received from Hildegarde’s Pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat and puts the rest into the community center for the residents of the tower. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
McCarthy is a talker and narrates his journey, noting he wears the same size pants he wore in junior high, though he has pre-diabetes and must watch what he eats. He says he has a nonverbal learning disorder. His low income means he gets some assistance, including subsidized housing, but was recently “bounced” off Medicaid and SNAP. He doesn’t take any of the help for granted. He’s seen how precarious life can be as program rules change.
By 11:35 a.m., McCarthy had pulled his wagon back home through traffic, past construction sites and over uneven curbs and ground.
According to St. Mark’s Tower property director Clesson Jellerson, there are 99 units for people 62 and older. The second Tuesday of every month, the Utah Food Bank brings Commodity Supplemental Food Program boxes for eligible residents — typically bread, cheese and a dozen eggs, among other items. The tower also has a little food pantry that right now has lots of canned spinach and a much smaller variety of other canned and boxed food.
John McCarthy walks home with groceries that he received from Hildegarde’s pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat, and gives the rest to his neighbors in his high-rise. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Last month, McCarthy’s box included a cookbook with recipes for foods like beans and spinach and powdered milk.
Rebecca Alaboudy, 60, also gets help from Hildegarde’s Pantry. She calls herself an Army brat who was raised very well and raised her five now-grown children on her own, has a college degree and always worked. She’s been ill and sometimes hungry but said she has never struggled as hard as she has lately. By the time she pays her bills, she said she has $15 left. She is grateful for nearby resources like the food pantry.
She said she sometimes sees people going into dumpsters downtown looking for food.
Rebecca Alaboudy receives a hug from the manager of Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News It started in a Bible study class
Debbie Crabtree, 67, grins as she closes the trunk of an older-model Toyota Camry into which she stuffed a couple of loaves of bread. She is the caboose in a string of volunteers loading food into roughly 700 cars winding their way through the Calvary Church parking lot in Murray beneath a sign that says “Jesus loves you.”
“I love you, too,” she tells the occupants. “You be safe out there.” Then she grabs more loaves for more cars.
Volunteer Mike Schaffrath, 73, rolls his wheelchair between tables, helping organize stacks of food. He’s been part of this effort for four or five years. “I do it because I love the Lord and I love my fellow man.” He adds that everyone needs help at some point “and I don’t think I would be here if not for good people caring about each other.”
Charlie Stephens and Debbie Crabtree hand out bread products at the free groceries drive-thru at Calvary in Murray on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Schaffrath estimates as many as 15% of the people they serve are older adults.
It’s a massive undertaking — one of many designed to help fill the gaps in food security experienced in Utah and across the nation.
Chad Bartholomew, the giveaway’s team lead, said the drive-through food distribution started in Bible study with a conversation about people who were hurting. Someone gave the pastor a cooler of chicken to distribute and it just kept growing. In July 2020, they were serving 100. Like the biblical story of loaves and fishes, he said, “donations started pouring in at about the same rate as the influx of people.” The peak was last November, when they served 1,000 cars. Now they’re serving about 700 cars and thus households a week.
People wait in line at the free groceries drive-thru at Calvary in Murray on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. Each week Utah Food for Families provides vital food boxes, produce & groceries to those in need. Approximately 600-700 cars drive through weekly. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Said volunteer Charlie Stephens, 66, “Years ago, I didn’t have anything. Opened the door one day to find feminine hygiene products, clean sheets, towels, food. I told God, ‘If you give me resources to bless others one day, I will be so in on it.’ And this happened.”
Does Calvary ever run out of food before they run out of people waiting to receive? “Yes. Hallelujah and dang.”
Debbie Crabtree grabs a loaf of bread for a customer at the free groceries drive-thru at Calvary in Murray on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Despite so many places — pantries and parking lots, food banks, churches, senior centers and bishops’ storehouses — everyone involved said there’s not enough food to meet the need.
An older woman in line at Calvary who asked to be unnamed said lots of the food donated to food banks is also not really great for older adults. There’s always lots of ultra-processed food like chips and sweets.
What’s in the box?
“Many of our seniors are homebound or don’t have family members to help or care for them. It’s a population we really need to pay attention to,” said Bott.
Last year, she said, the food bank provided close to 37,000 food boxes, often delivered by volunteers to seniors unable to come get them. “It really does take a village to take care of our folks. We try to schedule deliveries close to when Social Security is apt to have run out.”
Cindy White loads up a stroller with food during the monthly Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
The food bank boxes contain canned vegetables, canned fruit and when possible a protein like tuna or canned chicken. “Things that are low in sugar and low in sodium are ideal. If we get those, those are the first to be set aside for seniors to incorporate into their menu. We then try to see if we have fresh produce that is deliverable. We always try to have bread and cheese and eggs and milk. We figure those items alone could do several meals for an individual. If we have things like laundry detergent or shampoos, we try to make sure those go as well.”
At the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City, a little over half the residents need food, but just a third meet income rules for the federal, senior-targeted Commodity Supplemental Food Program boxes that provide about 10 days’ worth of food. In Utah, about 3,000 seniors participate in the program, which had nearly 732,000 spots nationally each month in 2024. There’s a waiting list. Bott said 31,160 of the program’s boxes were dropped off at seniors’ homes, senior housing or pickup locations for distribution in 2025.
Maryann Wilson sits in her apartment after receiving groceries through the monthly Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Eligibility is tight. The threshold is 150% of federal poverty guidelines — $1,995 monthly for a single older adult. State and tribal agencies can require proof someone is at nutritional risk, determined by a physician or local agency staff. Younger adults with a disability who are low-income and homebound can get a smaller food box with a week’s worth of food. Last year, the food bank distributed 5,551 of those.
The Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program lets eligible adults with an income at or below 185% of poverty who are 60 and older get coupons worth $50 a year for fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and honey. Utahns Against Hunger said the program helped 3,000 low-income older Utah adults last year.
Anything not claimed — there’s very little — is up for grabs at the high-rise, said Gasanthia Toalei, the building’s service coordinator. She also goes to other food drives and picks up boxes for residents she knows need help but can’t get out.
Cindy White helps Maryann Wilson with her new cellphone in Wilson’s apartment at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. White and Wilson help each other with food and cooked meals when one of them is in need, | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Residents look out for each other. Some cook for neighbors who can’t or who don’t have much food. That’s part of the bond between Cindy White, 55, and Mary Ann Wilson, 78. White said her celiac disease “raises the cost of my groceries by three times.” Before moving recently to the high-rise, she described being severely malnourished. Wilson has a disability and relies on Social Security; she also has a disabled son and helps care for a grandchild. When White’s cooking for her husband, she sometimes cooks for Wilson, too.
Paul Coelho is a former car salesman and tech guy who, at 79, sometimes runs short of food. He gets a monthly federal commodity food box. But like virtually everyone, there are foods he likes and foods he doesn’t. He loves the milk and juice, but not canned pears. He watches his sugar and salt, which are sometimes plentiful in the box. He likes fresh vegetables, fish and poultry.
Paul Coelho accepts cheese and eggs during the monthly Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Toalei puts all the food out on the table when she gets donations from other sources. Sometimes, she receives help for those in her building from the Bishops’ Storehouse, operated in communities by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Utah, that’s one of the best-known and most consistent and generous resources for people in dire straits. Although the storehouse generally serves members of that faith who are struggling, the church helps others, too, including with food drives.
Said Toalei, “As long as the food boxes keep coming and as long as the resources that I have at hand are willing to bring in food, I think we serve a good amount of need here.”
Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen
Mary Craig, of Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen, directs residents during her monthly food donation at the Fort Lane Senior Complex in Layton on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Mary Craig has cobbled together her own food program, with places like Maverik, Marco’s Pizza and Kneaders, among others, providing some basic foods for a number of food-insecure groups from Layton to Salt Lake City, including some homeless vets and a youth program. Monthly, what she calls Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen is at a senior apartment complex in Layton where many of the residents are frail or have special needs and she and volunteers supplement food for 38 senior-led families. Much of the food comes from the Utah Food Bank and other community partners.
It’s not enough, but it helps, said Craig, who sees a “definite increase” in the number of people who are homeless, retirement age or both and can’t afford to eat well. She’s also aware some older adults live in their cars — “some driveable, some not”— because they can’t afford rent. “It’s a growing demographic.” She said when the government shuts down, those who receive SNAP benefits don’t get them, creating another crisis. And most of those who come to warming centers are seniors, as well.
A can of food is grabbed during Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen at the Fort Lane Senior Complex in Layton on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. Recent Feeding America data found over 12 million older adults and seniors aged 50+ struggle with hunger, with about 7.7 million of them 60 and older. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
She too said, older adults are among the “invisible” who need food help. And many of them cannot go to a senior center or a food drive or the food bank, so help must come to them. Many here require assistance to take the food back to their unit.
Recently, one resident, Michael, showed up early to see if she had eggs — which he loves — and to hover to ensure they aren’t all gone before he gets them. Craig said he could sneak them back to his room, then come back. After he left, she said she often stops at the store on the way there to buy him bacon and eggs, his favorite food combination.
On this day, a pair of young men from Open Doors, a Davis County Community Action agency, bring some of the food. There are also adult diapers and muffins and a lot of candy, among a few other items. Her volunteer assistants are her pal, Janice Conner, and a young woman named Amy Stigile, who found Craig on Facebook and is becoming a frequent helper.
Jeffrey Nelson returns to his apartment with a laundry basket full of food that he received from Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen at the Fort Lane Senior Complex in Layton on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Because some of the residents have mental or physical disabilities and the federal program food boxes didn’t get to the distribution on time, she worries residents will struggle to make their way to the clubhouse next week. “For many, getting here is no small thing,” she said.
Dorthea Christensen is one of the older adults who benefits from Mary’s Mobile Soup Kitchen. She’s 66, retired and has a disability. Right now, her daughters and a granddaughter live with her temporarily while they get their own feet under them in what she called a terrible economy. Her income is fixed because she had to stop working early due to a degenerative spine and scoliosis. She said she’s five inches shorter now. She buys food, but not enough and is grateful for any help she gets.
Help on wheels
Owen Andrus pulls up to the Earl’s home in Magna on Thursday, June 25, 2026. Andrus, 82, has been delivering food for the Salt Lake County Meals on Wheels Program for close to 15 years. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
Owen Andrus, 82, has been delivering food for Salt Lake County Meals on Wheels for close to 15 years, since he retired from 30 years in the county sheriff’s office. He’s a paid driver who was going to do it for a year as a stopgap into retirement, but his doctor told him to “never quit that job.” He gets exercise, walks up and down stairs, meets and talks to lots of different people and has been saved from what might have been years in front of a TV, he said. He’s also serving a need that benefits a whole range of people, including Patricia and Rick Earl. He said the people on his route are nice and look “forward every day to the driver bringing lunch. Some say it’s the only meal they get.”
Owen Andrus delivers a meal to a client in Magna on Thursday, June 25, 2026. Andrus, 82, has been delivering meals with Meals on Wheels for 15 years. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
He can’t spend a lot of time — some days he delivers 51 meals, adding another driver delivers fewer but drives 85 miles. If he knocks and there’s no answer, he phones. No answer there, if he has prior permission, he walks in.
The food is prepared in the Salt Lake County government complex’s massive Trio Kitchen, a contracted commercial kitchen that uses locally sourced meat and produce. The county Aging and Adult Services program also provides 245,000 congregate meals for senior centers, reaching 7,800 clients.
The program has about 30 staff including some paid drivers. Volunteers deliver 42% of Meals on Wheels bags in Salt Lake County, responsible for 64 routes. Last year, the program provided 365,000 meals to 2,600 homebound seniors — along with 6,200 bags of dry cat or dog food for the furry friends who often are a homebound person’s most loyal companion.
Owen Andrus and Ineko Santander chat before heading out on their Meals on Wheels deliveries at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, June 25, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News Making seniors a priority
Staving off hunger among older adults in America requires a patchwork of approaches and lots of willing hands.
The way Bott, from the food bank, sees it, making sure no older adult is hungry should be a national priority. “We always talk about the children we’re helping as being our future. People never stop to think about our seniors. We owe them for what they have done. Their lives and their experiences have culminated in the opportunities you and I have now. We need to take care of our seniors just as diligently as we do our kids.”
Recently Craig visited a Kaysville senior center and described in real time watching older adults put half their lunch “inside Tupperware containers they’ve brought. One lady is putting her salad inside her empty milk carton so she can take it home. Another gentleman is feeding his wife, who has severe dementia,” she texted a reporter.
Then she added, “This is such humbling work.”
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Rick Earl drinks a glass of milk with his wife, Patricia, in their Magna home on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. The couple receives seven meals a week from Meals on Wheels. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Katie Stephens organizes meals to be delivered across Salt Lake County through the Meals on Wheels program at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, March 19, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Gasanthia Toalei wipes perspiration from her face while free boxes of food are delivered at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. Donations from the Bishops’ Storehouse, operated in communities by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are also available. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Rebecca Alaboudy fills out the necessary paperwork to receive free groceries at Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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A carton of eggs sits on a table near John McCarthy’s knickknacks in his apartment at St. Mark’s Tower in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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John McCarthy walks home with groceries that he received from Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat, and gives the rest to his neighbors in his high-rise. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Rick Earl pours a carton of milk into plastic goblets in Magna on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. The Earls receive milk and seven meals a week from Meals on Wheels. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Paul Coehlo opens his monthly box of food that he receives through the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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John McCarthy sorts through the food that he received from Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in his apartment at St. Mark’s Tower in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat and puts the rest into the community center for the residents of the tower. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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John McCarthy wheels food that he received from Hildegarde’s Food Pantry into the dining room of St. Mark’s Tower in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat and puts the rest into the community center for the residents of the tower. St. Mark’s Tower has 99 units for people 62 and older. The second Tuesday of every month, the Utah Food Bank provides food boxes for eligible residents, typically bread, cheese and a dozen eggs, among other items. The tower also has a little food pantry that right now has a lot of canned spinach and a much smaller variety of other canned and boxed food. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Rebecca Alaboudy waves to a passerby after getting groceries at Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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John McCarthy walks past the line of people waiting for food at Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy gets to the pantry hours before it opens in order to get the freshest food items. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Maryann Wilson puts away groceries that she received through the monthly Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Utah Food Bank Food Box Program at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Cindy White and Maryann Wilson chat while waiting for an elevator at the Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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Owen Andrus delivers a meal to a client in Magna on Thursday, June 25, 2026. Andrus, 82, has been delivering meals with Meals on Wheels for 15 years. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News 
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John McCarthy walks home with groceries that he received from Hildegarde’s Food Pantry in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. McCarthy keeps what he will eat, and gives the rest to his neighbors in his high-rise. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
