Member Highlight: Twin Falls Senior Center

The Twin Falls Senior Center has been serving the elderly population in Twin Falls since 1978. Our primary focus is on the aging population of Twin Falls, mostly those that are over the age of 60. Our largest commitment is to provide nutritional hot meals to homebound senior citizens along with serving senior citizens and other community members who congregate at the Senior Center. The Center promotes healthy socialization by providing activities that enhance the quality of life and the mental, emotional, and physical health of individual seniors which assists them with remaining independent in their own homes as long as possible. For our homebound clients we work diligently to serve them a hot nutritional meal, a friendly visit from our volunteers, and a daily well check to make sure they are staying healthy and nutritionally fed. The Center believes in serving the community one heart at a time.

The Twin Falls Senior Center (TFSC) is devoted to delivering a meal to an ever growing and underserved population. We have always answered the call to those who have become dependent on home delivered meals. Sadly, the federal funding through the Older American’s Act has not kept up with the demand for services. The Center provided more than 40,820 homebound meals in 2015, and 41,006 in 2016 (January–Sept). The demand for delivered meals will substantially increase through 2050. According to the most recent data, by 2025 an estimated 9.5 million seniors in the US will experience some form of food insecurity – 75% higher than 2005. In Idaho one in six seniors struggles with hunger. They could be your neighbor, friend, or relative. The segment of the local population who needs this vital service is growing exponentially while extending beyond Medicare beneficiaries to people of all ages, with an ever increasing number of complex illnesses and mental disorders that deem people in our community homebound.

These challenges will progressively increase for the foreseeable future. Currently, the TFSC recognizes that communication and education can reduce expensive medical interventions when nutrition and loneliness are addressed and help to reduce some of their expenses. TFSC is committed to ensuring the elderly and disabled population receives compassion, dignity and quality meals while receiving proper nutrition for health and wellness. For every one dollar spent on the Meals on Wheels program it saves $50 in Medicaid spending. Allowing individuals to remain independent in their own homes will also save money that would be spent on hospitalization, nursing facilities and long term care. You can feed a senior for one year versus spending one day in the hospital or six days in a nursing home. 84% of recipients eat more healthfully because of the service, and 92% say the meals allow them to live in their homes. The long term benefits of this program saves the community and taxpayers millions.

​Due to the lack of federal funding the Office on Aging has had to place individuals needing home delivered meals on a waiting list. The Twin Falls Senior Center is working diligently to make sure no one is placed on the list. How can these individuals wait two to three months to eat? For example, the 87-year-old woman who weighs 80 lbs. and living with her 91-year-old husband, or the 80-year-old woman who is just coming home from having hip replacement surgery, or the 67-year-old blind woman going through dialysis and living with her blind husband. Each of these has an urgent need for a home delivered meal. Charitable individuals & organizations are needed to help feed Seniors in Twin Falls. Please visit tfseniorcenter.com or call 734-5084 today to learn more about ways to support and volunteer.