Creative for cooking

A local organization dedicated to feeding homebound seniors is having to get creative to support Orange County’s aging population by dipping its hand into social enterprise.

Community SeniorServ is trying to expand the for-profit side of its business to meet the growing needs of its nonprofit side by growing its bulk food manufacturing to produce edibles for commercial vendors.

SeniorServ is a nonprofit working to help seniors maintain their independence through a series of outlets, including a Meals on Wheels program. The program serves Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley by providing three meals a day, five times a week to more than 1,000 homebound seniors who have difficulty shopping or cooking because of illness or disability. The organization also serves a daily hot lunch at both cities’ senior centers.

Without the program, elderly or frail seniors would lose their independence, said Cathy Meschuk, a Meals on Wheels volunteer for 13 years and a former president of the Huntington Beach Council on Aging.

“If they didn’t have this program, they wouldn’t be able to stay at home,” Meschuk said.

The program asks for a donation for its daily meal service, but doesn’t require payment. The organization is partially funded by government grants, and while its funding hasn’t been cut, it is preparing for “challenging economic conditions,” said Shannon Buhrmaster, the director of sales and marketing at SeniorServ.

The senior population is projected to double in the next 10 years, putting more than a million of Orange County’s residents in the 55-and-older category and adding to the number of people who will need SeniorServ’s assistance with the same amount of funding. In Huntington Beach, the senior community is “exploding” with the baby boomer generation turning 65, Meschuk said.

“The needs are just going up and up,” Meschuk said.

The organization started bulk manufacturing food for profit about 10 years ago, but now it is getting serious. SeniorServ is aggressively going after clients in an attempt to make its nonprofit side self-sufficient. It bought cook-chill equipment, a process that extends the shelf life of food, and produces sauces, salsas and soups.

The organization serves a couple of commercial clients and provides meals to the Orange County Department of Education and other adult day health centers, but is looking to expand to about 30 clients to support itself.

“We want to be at the point where we say we can support our nonprofit if we do get cuts,” Buhrmaster said.