(equipment whirring) - And then of course, this water can go in here.

It's not ice cold.

My name is Kay Calvert, and I'm with Tri-County Meals, and we're located in Quitaque, Texas.

We cover four different counties, just parts of it, and we've been doing this for a little over 20 years.

When we first started Tri-County Meals, we would go to every Lions Club, every group, organization, church, whoever would listen to us.

My husband would follow me around, and I would talk about this kind of a program to feed senior citizens.

And we'd have pretty good groups.

And after I'm through, they would come up to us and go, "Oh, I think that'd be a wonderful idea, but we don't need that 'cause we take care of our neighbors."

(mellow music) We started just the Home-Delivered Meal program, and three months later, I get a call from a volunteer, I'm not gonna mention which community it was, and said that she went in to deliver this meal to this 85-year-old woman.

(mellow music) And she goes in and she's not feeling good.

And so she puts the milk in her refrigerator for her 'cause she's not going to eat right then, and there's cat food in there and she doesn't have any cats.

And this woman had told her that there was an extra week that month for her Social Security.

She paid all of her bills and she didn't have anything left, so she went to the grocery store and they had cat food on sale, and that it really didn't taste that bad.

So we see that from time to time where you think they're okay, (mellow music) but they're not.

When you really go in and talk to someone, you know our percentages are high for food insecurity, and we're constantly looking for ways that we can help.

That's what Tri-County's trying to accomplish.

(mellow music) - Food insecurity is complicated, it's complex, it's multifaceted.

- In thinking about food insecurity, it's, to some extent, is we've solved, to use a lack of a better term, the low-hanging fruit.

I know that if you keep food prices low, I know that if you have economic growth, I know that if you have a strong social safety net programs like SNAP, we're gonna do a pretty good job at overall reducing food insecurity.

From 2014 to 2021, we saw sharp declines in food insecurity.

I mean, food insecurity fell by 35% for the full population.

And for children, it fell by about 40%.

- There's a lot that leaves me optimistic.

And I think at the heart of it is people.

We have a lot of people in the Texas Panhandle who are caring, who will step up, and do work without getting acknowledgement that they're doing work.

The High Plains Food Bank does a phenomenal job in providing food resources for those partners.

- We partner with other organization, other nonprofit organizations throughout the Panhandle.

They could be churches, they could be standalone food pantries, they could be shelters, soup kitchens, daycare centers, or ministerial alliances that are collaborating to establish an emergency food pantry.

- [Reporter] According to the High Plains Food Bank 2023 annual report, they served an average of 21,000 neighbors.

- We feed the Texas Panhandle through a network of 143 partner agencies, their food pantries and feeding programs that each serve their community.

- Well, the High Plains Food Bank was founded in 1982.

Really in the same amount of time that many food banks are across the United States began to pop up.

- The face of hunger in America has changed to include not only the transient and the elderly poor, but the thousands who are unemployed and their families who are dependent upon them.

At the same time, there are many people who are working very hard to end hunger.

Your local food bank is one example.

You can help them help others by donating food funds for your time.

- And the whole idea around it was a concerned community looking at two factors.

One, the amount of food that was going to waste, (ambient music) and how could we preserve that food and then turn it around to meet the second factor, which is the need in the community.

Not only just Amarillo, but the Texas Panhandle.

Historically, when our organization was founded, it was based on that model of, "Well, there's food and resources in our community that are going to waste.

How can we collect those, rescue those, and then shift it over to folks?"

- Everybody wants to donate jars of peanut butter, cans of beans, donate, and great, we love food donations.

We'll accept food donations all day long.

We found that when clients are given a bag of food or a box of food, up to 40% of that is wasted.

But we found that a dollar, we can stretch a dollar a lot further than the average consumer.

(mellow music) - Really over the course of seven years or so, when fresh produce became more readily available through our state food bank network, and there's a lot of produce that's grown, San Antonio and South here in Texas.

Having that shift specifically for seniors is crucial.

So that's when we started to incorporate more fresh produce, go after produce, go after protein, these items that are needed in a daily diet.

- So we go, I couldn't tell you the percentages of meat and vegetables, but it's a balance because it has to meet the guidelines of Area Agency on Aging, because we have to turn those into them.

- The primary mission of the Area Agency on Aging is to promote dignity, independence, and quality of life for individuals who are over the age of 60 and their caregivers.

It's having that ability to choose how I, or they, want to live their life.

And I think that that's what we see whenever we provide services here is: How do we give back that ability for someone to choose?

(mellow music) And so if they want to remain in their home, can we set them up with our in-home services, like homemaker or personal assistance?

If they are caregiving for a family member, can we offer them respite to give them that much-needed break?

- Hunger and food insecurity among older adults is complex, and no one older adult experiences the same thing as another older adult, and therefore the solutions are gonna have to be unique.

- Well, I would describe the AAA as a connector, and so we're a connector in terms of information, but we're also a connector in terms facilitating those services.

And so right now, if we go with the example of transportation, and that's just one, we partner with the city of Amarillo and their ACT-Connect transportation.

So we offer a number of free rides for folks.

The only eligibility requirement is that you're over the age of 60.

And so that's just one of the ways that we act as a connector and try to get people to the resources that they need.

So I think that it all comes back to that ability to choose.

And the dignity that comes with that.

- The way we look at ourselves, the way we look at our clients.

Every one of our volunteers wears a name tag with our first name written on that.

We found that when you call somebody by their first name, that gives them dignity, lets them know that, "We're on the same level, we're equals.

We're no better than you are, you're no better than us."

So we wanna offer them, again, that whole dignified experience.

We treat everybody as that were Jesus walking in the door.

So we wanna love them.

- If you look at who's running food pantries, if you're looking at who's doing all this stuff, it's a lot of faith-based groups that are doing a lot of this stuff.

- Historically, maybe an antiquated practice was to make individuals sit through a talk, a sermon, a whatever before they were able to access food, and that really kind of added insult to injury.

That was not the intention, I don't believe that was the intention, but it did kind of add insult to injury because you're already... An individual is already having to ask for help, and they're already feeling less than, and then you're putting another barrier between them and what they really need.

- Our pastor, he is the one that's told us about this, but we decided early on that we will not gauge our success by the number of baptisms we have or conversions we have.

We will not ever ask everybody that walks in that door if you've received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

When we were homeless.

To preach a sermon to me at that time.

I would've ran the other way.

I wouldn't have come back.

All we want to do is provide food to those that need it most.

- We have the Ministry Alliance, mostly our church, along with the other churches, the First Methodist, First Assembly, the Pentecostal Church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, we work together to try to help with those needs.

Our church, along with some of the other churches in Memphis, did initially our own kind of Snack Pak 4 Kids program.

Now, since then, we have partnered with Snack Pak 4 Kids out of Amarillo.

- Snack Pak 4 Kids is all about making sure no kid goes hungry during summer break or the school season.

The nonprofit continues to innovate to bring quality food to needy kids.

And with its cooperative, it's helping to feed 40,000 kids in Texas alone, saving its partners $1.5 million on food purchases in the process.

- Well, we have 42 Snack Pak programs in the Panhandle.

So if you're in Dumas, Dalhart, Pampa, Borger, Perryton, all the way down to Idalou, all those communities said, "We want to bring this solution to our community as well."

It's pretty humbling when 10% of our kids said, "I'm feeding my grandparents with a Snack Pak."

(pensive music) - According to recent federal and state statistics, it's said that it's estimated nationwide of 7 million grandparents raising one or more grandchildren in their homes, apartments, senior living, et cetera.

- Because grandparents are facing lots of struggles and challenges when they're raising their grandchildren.

And the more the community knows, the more the community can come behind them and support them in unique ways.

- I will never forget this, this was almost three or four years ago.

So we pull up at a school to get ready for to set up, and there's a lady sitting in the old 2000 Lincoln Town Car, big car.

Two little kids get out, they go running across the parking lot, "Can we get a snack pack?"

I said, "Absolutely."

So I gave those two kids a snack pack, and they went, ran back and put it in the car.

Well, out of the car comes their great-grandmother and she was raising her two great-grandkids.

She was a retired school teacher, so she had a pension from teacher retirement, yet she's raising her two great grandkids and drove all the way across town to make sure she could get a snack pack for them because she didn't have enough to take care of them.

I was like, "Oh my goodness, here is an example of that 10%."

That summer, Tillie brought her great-grandkids up here and packed bags every week.

We got to know her, we got to know her story, we got to understand what was the gap in Tillie's life that made her need what we did.

And she helped us explain, because she was on a retirement income, she didn't qualify for additional resources.

So where we think, "Oh, there's all these resources you can get," she made too much money, yet the money she made was not enough to, all of a sudden, have two additional people in her home.

So we developed a model called The Tillie Project based on her feedback.

If seniors have a problem, they can talk to their school.

We have an online grocery store that they can order from.

They can either pick up that solution at that school or they can come here and pick that up.

But we did this because we were willing to listen to Tillie.

Our kids were instrumental in what we do, what's in their bag, how we solve problems, the fact they were feeding their grandparents.

- We get constant calls from students at school, the local high schools or even at WT who need to complete service hours for their class.

So they're looking for volunteer opportunities.

- I contacted Valley School District, and my boys went to school out there.

I mean, I know everyone and said, "Listen, we need some help, and I was wondering if we could get some kids," and of course they jumped right on that.

We keep every Wednesday delivery for Valley School.

And then Silverton School District.

The Silverton Independent School District jumped in on it, and they have made connections with some of these older people and didn't even know.

And now, these kids have made those connections, and they feel like they're a part of helping them.

- We have 188 volunteers.

So we invite the public in to come work in our food pantry, to volunteer, to get to know our clients themselves, see it firsthand.

We also ask our volunteers to sign off on a Code of Conduct.

That Code of Conduct just states that we're gonna treat our clients' names confidential.

We're gonna keep all that... That's our client's story to tell, it's not ours.

- And I would say with our senior, again, they're very prideful.

They've always worked their...

They've been hardworking, and they've worked hard.

And many of them did save.

They can't provide for themselves and they don't want to ask for help.

It's an embarrassment to them.

And they don't need to be embarrassed, but it's just a product of their generation.

- Programs that are designed to try to help poor people, in many ways, they take away their dignity, they take away their autonomy.

That's not the case with SNAP.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, which is formerly known as the Food Stamp Program.

- [Narrator] And that name derives from the early versions of the program that literally used stamps.

Today, families get their SNAP benefits delivered electronically into an account they use, like a debit card.

They can buy foods like fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, cereal, and snacks.

But the benefits can't be used to buy alcohol, vitamins or supplements, prepared foods, or household products like cleaning supplies or pet food.

- If I'm a SNAP recipient, is I can go into a food store and I can walk alongside my neighbors and make the exact same.

I can chop in the exact same way that they do, which is nice.

I always tell people I'm not a big fan of a lot of government programs, but I love SNAP.

SNAP is this amazing program insofar as the central goal is to alleviate food insecurity in the United States.

And study after study has shown that it succeeds at this.

(pensive music) - I think there's some things that are systemic in our welfare system and things like that, that actually hold people down more than they help them up.

A prime example would be you have somebody that's on unemployment, and they go out and they get a job.

So in the moment they get a paycheck, they get cut off on unemployment.

So what's happened is they're just trying to dig out of a hole.

They've been in this hole because unemployment doesn't cover.

And so now they got a job, and rather than allowing them to still receive some unemployment for three or four months, they lose that.

- If people want to work, we shouldn't have government programs that are discouraging from working.

That's not a good thing.

So that's another way that SNAP gives people dignity.

There are a lot of assistance programs that do discourage work.

And so far, there's what's called The Cliff, is if you make $1 more than the threshold, you lose all your benefits.

So I always tell people, "If I'm gonna lose my health insurance 'cause I make $1 more, I'm not gonna work more, I'm gonna turn down that pay raise."

I mean, I would do that...

If Baylor said you're gonna lose your health insurance, you want a $5,000 pay raise or do you want to lose your health insurance?

Like, no, I'll keep my health insurance.

So it's natural, so...

SNAP is not like that, though.

SNAP is an an amazing program, insofar as for each additional dollar you make, you lose 30 cents in benefit.

So there's a tax, but you don't lose all your benefits once you become ineligible.

So there's a steady decline in people's benefit levels, as opposed to a cliff.

- About 4 million people across both Texas and Oklahoma receive SNAP benefits, including over 2 million children.

- [Narrator] So, anti-hunger advocates are pushing to increase investment in these programs through a bill.

- The Farm Bill includes allocations for a variety of food programs, notably the SNAP programs.

SNAP is one of our most powerful anti-hunger tools because it provides that extra grocery dollars to low-income families.

- If we lose access to programs like SNAP, I see children being greatly affected.

(pensive music) - I think now, even now, there's like a social stigma around all food benefit programs, and a lot of people, they just feel embarrassed.

- When I pull out food stamps, people look at me like I ain't got no husband.

They talk to me like I ain't got no sense.

They treat me like I ain't got no class.

And if somebody treats me like that, I'm going to curse them out!

- I think that social stigma prevents them to seek help.

- Too many times, food is associated with stigma, and judgment, and labels, versus seeing it as an essential tool for success.

- I think that the approach that some of the newer pantries are taking in terms of offering client choice, offering consistency in some of the food that's there is helpful in a number of ways.

But one, it allows the client to pick what they can eat, they need to eat, and also makes sure that dignity is at the forefront of that service.

- I had a meeting with Becky Stogner at Snack Pak 4 Kids, and I told her the name of our pantry, it's The Food Pantry on Sierra Blanca, and she stopped me.

She said, "Please don't call it The Food Pantry.

Have you ever been through social services?"

And I said, "Well, thank God I have not."

She said, "If you have ever been through social services, you will find out how demeaning it is, the amount of paperwork that you have to fill out, how people look down on you."

She said, "It is a very demeaning experience."

She said, "Do not call it a food pantry.

Their pantries are empty, that's why they're coming to you."

So that's how we came up with a name.

Even the bags that we fill the groceries with, all they say is, "Thank you."

They don't say the market on Sierra Blanca, they don't say anything like that.

- [Dyron] A lot of these institutions, whether it be providing food, are being held up by older persons.

I have Seniors Helping Seniors.

- Some of our most faithful volunteers have been seniors.

- So for us to begin to say seniors are not valuable or seniors are not important or they don't offer anything, the average age in my warehouse on Tuesday morning is 73 years old.

- On average, seniors may have more time, may have more time, and therefore can do a lot of these things that maybe for some younger people don't have a constraint.

That could be it.

But no, absolutely, is that a lot of these things are being held up by older persons.

- When we started doing Snack Pak, I've seen the seniors, and they love it.

For them, it's like, "Are we gonna go to work tomorrow?"

We go every Wednesday, so they're always like, they think it's like a work.

"Are you gonna go to work?"

for them is very important.

And I always tell them, "This is stuff that you're doing for other seniors, other seniors that are homebound."

And it means a lot to them.

- After George and I would would talk to people, I caught him saying one day and one afternoon, I think it was a Lions Club at Turkey.

And George, and this man asked him, said, "Well, why are y'all doing this?"

They didn't understand why him and I were going out and talking about this program that they'd never heard of.

And George said, "Well, we're just trying to get all the bugs out of it because we're gonna be there."

Well, I was in my early 50s, and now I'm in my mid-70s.

So yeah, I think it's worked out pretty good.

And if something happens to one of us, well, we're gonna get the benefit of this program, too.

- We know that some of these volunteers that are coming in that are seniors could have very well benefit from the food that they are helping sort, and go through, and package for it.

- Oh, it's a joy to do it.

I don't mind doing it if I'm available and in town.

It's a, as I say, it is a joy of pleasure and an honor to be able to serve those in need to put it bluntly.

My wife and I have volunteer or have, in the past, up at Catholic Charities, up on the north side of Amarillo, Northeast side.

And those experiences up there, yeah, it is more than gratifying to take the time and help.

We used to do it on Wednesday mornings for several hours, and she's developed some kind of an issue with her back, so we've had to bow out on that for the last two months.

- And my daughter, she buys a lot of stuff in Amarillo, and take, and bring it to me.

So, I don't have a problem with hunger, but I know a lot of people does, and I help a lot of people that... A lot of people that's on drugs and stuff, and I help them.

- [Interviewer] What does that look like?

How do you help them out?

- Give them food?

- [Narrator] Rural communities are resilient.

They are strong, they are independent in a way that cities probably aren't.

(pensive music) - We were taught to take care of our family.

If they need help, they need food, take to the doctor, we took care of it.

- Even in the emergency-based food pantry before we built the pantry, we were mainly senior-based.

So when we actually opened the doors and we started seeing a different age group kind of come in.

So, it really didn't surprise me because they're out there, just like the seniors are out there.

So there has to be a way to continue to feed some of those families, too.

Yeah.

They work or they try to work, they live in these small communities, but hey, I don't care.

We feed them.

I don't know what else to say.

(uplifting music) - [Interviewer] How would you describe senior food insecurity in one word?

- Oh.

Now you got me there, just one word.

- Overwhelming.

- Transportation.

- Need, lack.

- Heartbreaking.

That's the word that I would use if I was to use one word to describe food insecurity amongst seniors.

- I would say the word is complex.

There's a complex set of circumstances that are at play for the seniors that are hungry.

It's not as if we don't have enough food in this country.

So there's clearly an abundance of supply.

There's clearly a lot of demand.

There are a lot of seniors that are struggling with hunger.

So, the complexity of it is if we've got enough and we have a deep need, why isn't the the source being connected to the need?

- It is going to take the entire Texas Panhandle to address the issue because we are in this together.

- And it is a journey, it will never end, it will change, it will evolve, but it's all how we treat people and help people along the journey that makes us stronger, I believe, as the Texas Panhandle and as a country as a whole.

- In other words, we've made a lot of progress in terms of over some dimensions of addressing food insecurity.

But if I had to think about like the next frontier for addressing food insecurity, it's amongst seniors and figuring out how can we bring down their numbers.

- Unfortunately, I think we're always gonna have the hungry among us, and I think we're always gonna have those who are struggling among us.

I do think that some of the work that we're doing can help find those people, can help connect them to the resources that they need, and it can help improve their quality of life.

- I didn't think I would make it to this age, and I'm still not ready for it.

(mellow music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by the Mary E. Bivins Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.