Sandpoint Senior Center aims to ‘Fill the Gap’

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

For many seniors in North Idaho, the Sandpoint Senior Center is not only a critical provider of weekday meals, but a beloved social hub. With food costs on the rise and a decrease in federal funding, the center is struggling to cover the more than 2,000 home-delivered and on-site meals that it makes available to area seniors. 

To meet that challenge, the center is launching a “Fill the Gap” fundraiser Thursday, Sept. 26 to ensure the senior meal program continues to offer services to hundreds of local seniors.

The fundraising campaign aims to raise $50,000, in the hopes of covering the difference between the cost it takes to prepare and deliver meals and the reimbursement the center receives from agencies.

“Out of the roughly $12 that it costs to make a meal, the Area Agency on Aging will reimburse up to about $4,” Director Lisa Bond told the Reader. “The rest is covered strictly with donations. We don’t ask seniors to pay unless they are able.”

The fundraising campaign will run for 30 days.

Bond said the center has a two-pronged mission: first to provide meals to the aging community and second to foster the concept of social connection. While it’s important to shore up the meals program, Bond said cultivating a vibrant social atmosphere at the center has been her mission since taking over as director earlier this year.

“You don’t have to be pushing a wheelchair to visit the senior center,” Bond said. “Seniors in this day and age listen to Eric Clapton, go to concerts, they ski. But we’re in a deep need for social connection, and the best way to do that is around meals.”

In addition to regular programs like bingo, bridge, pinochle and Fit and Fall Proof classes, Bond has added activities such as ballroom dancing, live music and chair yoga to appeal to a wider senior population. Also, area organizations often utilize the center as a safe space to hold meetings.

“We serve meals Monday through Thursday; but, after that, it’s a shame the place sits empty for so much of the time,” Bond said. 

Any local organizations interested in booking space for meetings at the senior center are invited to call and speak with Bond.

“It’s a new age for seniors and it’s a new era,” she said. 

To donate to the center to help “Fill the Gap,” make checks payable to SASi and send to: 820 Main St., Sandpoint, ID 83864. Visit sandpointareaseniors.org or call Bond at 208-263-6860 for more information.