Gov. Newsom: California will pay restaurants to make, deliver meals to senior citizens. The program aims to keep vulnerable populations well-fed during the COVID-19 crisis while stimulating the economy.
Call 211 to determine your eligibility.
To be eligible for meals, seniors must have incomes below 600 percent of the federal poverty level (under 70,000 per year) and must either be at high-risk of exposure to COVID-19, already impacted or exposed directly to COVID-19, or have compromised immune systems.
Counties will identify those eligible, but prospective participants should call their local 211 lines to sign up, Newsom said.
Restaurants will be reimbursed $16 for each breakfast, $17 for each lunch, and $28 for each dinner from a combination of FEMA and state funding. Meals must meet nutritional guidelines set forth by the program.
“I keep saying nutrition for a reason,” Newsom explained. “We want to make sure we’re focused on locally produced produce. We want to connect our farms to this effort. We want to focus our values throughout the state of California to get a lot of independent restaurants up and running again as well and have a diversity of options — and make sure that what we’re sending to our seniors is low sodium.”
The state launched a website for the program — https://covid19.ca.gov/restaurants-deliver-home-meals-for-seniors/ — but as of late Friday, there was no information about how restaurants can register their interest in participating.