One in seven Ohioans faces food insecurity, according to Feeding America. This series is produced in partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio.
Social gathering can be an extremely effective tonic for loneliness in an age of isolation, and food is a staple of any gathering.
A quarter of seniors over 65 are socially isolated, according to a 2020 National Institutes of Health study. El Centro, a social services organization in Lorain that primarily serves Spanish-speaking residents, uses social gathering as a way to get healthy and nutritious food to isolated seniors.
The agency is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, making it one of the oldest Latinx organizations in Ohio, said Victor Landry, who has been running the organization for over 20 years.
El Centro's headquarters occupies former bank buildings overlooking the train depot and the Black River. In front of vault doors that used to be meticulously locked and guarded, friends now casually gather to have a coffee, eat a bit of pan sobao — a traditional Puerto Rican bread — and take time to catch up.
A tradition
Nelly Davila runs the senior program at El Centro, in partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio. The group has been meeting for nearly 30 years, but recently added the partnership with a food bank.
"Second Harvest came to us and said, 'Hey, we have this program that's specifically for seniors, and is this something that you would be interested in?' Mind you, we were meeting regularly. This was before the pandemic, and so I was like, 'Absolutely. Anything that will benefit our seniors,'" Davila said.
The seniors, who are mostly from Puerto Rico, get together every other week for food, activities and camaraderie, but mostly to play games and have some fun.
The benefits are more than a mood boost, as there are other tangible benefits to socializing. A 2021 Penn State study suggested seniors who have a chance to socialize experience cognitive improvement in the days that follow.
The senior program's most popular activity by far is bingo.
"I love bingo! I love everything," said Iluminada Cruz, who has been coming to El Centro regularly since her husband passed away. Before he died, he used to come to El Centro to play dominos with his friends.
"He come over here years back... and then when my husband passed away, one of my friends, she said to me, 'Why you don't go to El Centro?' because I live alone, and I started to come here. I love it and I stay," Cruz said.
Cruz immigrated to the United States from Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, in 1954, settling in New York City. In 1966, she moved with her family, including four sisters, to Lorain.
Lorain is home to a large Hispanic population, many of whom originally came when the steel industry attracted workers in the early 1920s. Cruz’s sister, Amelia Martinez, also comes to El Centro where they both have friends and an active social life — and where they both play bingo ferociously.
The game sprawls across three long tables as women lay out six cards each, from which they check off numbers. On one particular day, Cruz and her sister took turns calling out the numbers.
Meanwhile, in a small corner room with glass walls, a single game of dominos was played between three men and one woman. They were focused on their hands, barely speaking, saving the chit-chat for breaks between games.
Food insecurity and funding insecurity
Lack of funding has restricted El Centro's senior program to just one day every other week.
"Unfortunately, some of the services have been reduced because of funding for seniors, especially in this county," Landry said. "We used to have two full-time case managers providing general case management, home visits, making sure that they were OK, and our gathering used to be every week before the pandemic."
Lucy Llado Rivera volunteers her time at El Centro as a friend and a lifeline for isolated seniors, particularly for those who speak English as a second language. Before she volunteered there, her sister was the previous director of the program before Davila. She said the pandemic was a particularly hard time for the seniors.
"They really missed it when the pandemic came because they were going nuts in their house. Nelly had an idea for a couple of us to play bingo online. I think it was Zoom... and that was a lot of fun. Oh my God, they had so many laughs," Llado Rivera said.
When they were able to come back in person, Llado Rivera said the focus became getting seniors healthy food while providing the sense of community they were missing.
El Centro’s partnership with Second Harvest is focused on food insecurity, among other reasons, because it's hard for some seniors to shop for themselves in Lorain, particularly if they don’t have access to a car.
The grocery option for most seniors is Fligner's Market, the oldest grocery store in the city. But Llado Rivera said using public transportation to try and shop there is difficult and can take up a whole day for seniors without help.
That's why volunteers at El Centro make sure to get seniors healthy snacks and food boxes while they remain focused on play, especially since many are diabetic, Llado Rivera said.
Without new sources of funding, El Centro is forced to continue its program every other week. The problem is lack of funding sources in the Lorain area, Landry said.
"It is such a poor city, that to do fundraising in Lorain is different from doing fundraising in Cleveland or other cities, because you don't have that many corporations even to ask for money," he explained.
Single focus
Despite the importance of getting healthy food, particularly for vulnerable seniors, it’s mostly a side benefit to those frequenting El Centro’s senior program, as Davila discovered when she first proposed a nature field trip to the group. After many years of the same routine: food, talk, games, repeat, Davila tried the idea of getting out.
"I said, you know, I have this great place that I want to take you. It's beautiful… And I said, but you can't play bingo," Davila recalled. "Just silence. Really. But you can't play bingo, and they're like, 'Oh...' I said, 'I'll let you think about it.'"
Ultimately, Davila prevailed and they went on their first of what is now a regular smattering of field trips mixed in with their game days. Most recently, they visited Miller Nature Preserve in Avon, which they enjoyed, but Davila said she learned a valuable lesson about the seniors' priorities.
"They get here at 9 a.m. and then they play from the moment they get here until the time they leave," she said. "I tell them it's an obsession."
But it's a healthy obsession, it seems, as the seniors of El Centro discover every two weeks, when they light up from each other’s presence and the nourishment of community.
