Located just north of Phoenix, Yavapai County is experiencing a surge in its senior population, with residents aged 65 and over representing nearly double the number seen in other parts of Arizona and the rest of the U.S.
At the same time, the number of food insecure seniors is also on the rise, which brings us to this story: Walk into the Community Cupboard Food Bank in Prescott Valley and it looks like a mini-mart.
“And so every shelf gives you a limit for how many per household,” explains Sharon Arsenault, the food bank manager here and a longtime volunteer.
“We have a vegetable shelf. We have the fruit shelf, the pasta, and spaghetti shelf, the peanut butter and jelly shelf," Arsenault says.
The mac and cheese, she says, is the cupboard's hottest item. There are shelves lined with canned proteins. There’s also milk, eggs and fresh food, too.
Roughly 300 people come through these doors each week. That figure has increased by a lot.
“A year ago we might have had 150,” she says. But with the state of the economy and SNAP cuts, “it's doubled. It is absolutely doubled.”
Housing costs are another reason why. Prescott Valley and neighboring Prescott are expensive communities.
“Well, I think Prescott has always been labeled as a great place to retire,” says Jim Phelps, the executive director of The Community Cupboard Food Bank in Prescott Valley and Prescott. Both locations have seen upticks in demand.
“And so you have a lot of people moving here with wealth, but then you have an existing population that maybe doesn't have that kind of wealth," Phelps says.
Tack on rising healthcare costs, and food often falls to the bottom of the list.
“And the seniors that we see come in, many are ailing. They can't walk well. They're in walkers. They're struggling,” Arsenault says.
The community cupboard relies on grants and donations — in fact, they just received 18,000 pounds of donated food, which Arsenault said should last about a month.
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Located on a quiet street in Phoenix’s Melrose District is the Chinese Senior Center. The center opened its doors roughly 40 years ago and offers a mix of programming in both Mandarin and Cantonese.
