Oregon Nutrition Program - Restaurant and Voucher Program Resources
Area
Agencies on Aging (AAAs) in Oregon and nationally have been exploring
ways of working with local restaurants or other food service
establishments such as hospitals, schools, department of corrections,
or grocery stores to provide meals that meet local needs as well as
state and Older Americans Act (OAA) requirements. Some of the models
include:
- A restaurant or other food service establishments
serves as the meal site instead of a more traditional site such as a
senior or community center.
- Vouchers are provided by the AAA to
enable participants to redeem vouchers for meals in one or more
restaurants or other food service establishments.
- AAA or
nutrition sites purchase food from one or more restaurants, with the
restaurant food served at an existing traditional meal site.
Benefits
to these models include ability to meet food and dining preferences of a
more diverse population, or to offer meal programs in rural areas where
there may not be options for traditional meal sites. However, these
alternative models also raise potential challenges that AAAs must
address in order to meet OAA expectations for meal content, donations,
data collection, socialization opportunities, and links to other aging
services. Costs may also be higher than in traditional settings, and
traditional approaches to fundraising for meal programs may need to be
addressed differently.
AAAs and the SUA worked together to
develop the following resources and guidelines to assist AAAs in
exploring options for providing meals through these non-traditional
approaches.
Planning resources
- Resource and Voucher Program Guidelines
– Oregon guidelines and check-off list to assist AAAs in developing
agreements with restaurants or other food service providers.
- Restaurant-based Congregate Nutrition Sites and Restaurant Voucher Programs
– article from the National Resource Center on Nutrition, Physical
Activity, and Aging on benefits and challenges of voucher programs
- Oregon Menu Component Review
– Word and Excel version of menu component grid that can be used by
restaurants or AAA nutrition programs to ensure meals obtained through
agreements with other food service providers meet basic OAA
requirements.
Sample agreements
Sample vouchers and promotional materials