Marcus Lampros, vice president of Lampros Steel, testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging this week in Washington, D.C. Mr. Lampros has been a member of the Loaves & Fishes Centers Board of Director and has been a volunteer Meals-On-Wheels driver for 20 year. He was invited to testify during a special hearing on Seniors Going Hungry in America: A Call to Action and a Warning for the Future.
Hunger is a serious threat facing millions of seniors in the United States, as well as here in Oregon. In the first six months of 2008, Loaves & Fishes Centers served 14 percent more clients than at this time last year. The agency currently serves 5,000 hot meals daily to seniors in Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties. Loaves & Fishes Centers, which experiences 10 percent growth annually, expects to serve 1.5 million meals by year end and anticipates that number will double meals by 2025.
“We have seen a marked increase in the number of meals we are serving to seniors in the metropolitan area,” said Loaves & Fishes Centers Executive Director Joan Smith. “With the aging of the baby boomers and an impending recession, we are prepared to meet the needs of an expanding senior population.”
The trend in hunger among seniors was confirmed this week with the release of a study, titled “The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America”. Funded by a grant from the Meals On Wheels Association of America Foundation, the study was conducted by James P. Ziliak, Ph.D. from the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky and Craig Gunderson, Ph.D. from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University.
Since 1970 Loaves & Fishes Centers has provided a nutritional and social lifeline for seniors through 35 meal sites in Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties and Meals-On-Wheels delivery to homebound seniors. With the help of more than 7,500 volunteers, the nonprofit, nonsectarian agency now serves 5,000 meals daily and more than 1.3 million meals each year. Loaves & Fishes Centers was named one of the “Ten Most Admired Companies” in the non profit category in Oregon by The Portland Business Journal in 2006.
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