Rotary Club of Palo Alto gives grant to Episcopal Senior Communities

Episcopal Senior Communities Foundation (ESCF) has received a $5,000 grant from the Rotary Club of Palo Alto to start a new Senior Produce Market, providing affordable fresh fruit and produce to seniors living in a low-income housing community in Palo Alto.

Offered in senior housing communities, senior centers, and churches, Episcopal Senior Community (ESC) Senior Produce Markets operate in 20 locations throughout Northern California. In addition to ensuring the availability of healthy food options, each Senior Produce Market helps combat isolation and builds community by providing a social environment as well as resources and information about senior services. Each market, largely run by the seniors themselves, also offers community volunteer opportunities.

Since 2007, ESC has successfully operated a Senior Produce Market in Palo Alto at Lytton Gardens, a senior affordable housing community operated by ESC. The Market is open once a week on Tuesdays at 10:00 am and serves an average of 60 seniors per market day. The Palo Alto Rotary grant will cover costs associated with establishing a new market that will serve seniors living in and around Stevenson House, another local senior affordable housing community.

“ESC is very excited to partner with the Rotary Club of Palo Alto to provide fresh, affordable produce to seniors at Stevenson House,” says Sheila Womack, Director of Senior Produce Markets. The market is scheduled to open this summer.

Established in 1965, Episcopal Senior Communities cultivates and builds healthy communities with a continuum of residential and innovative aging services that actively promote intellectual, physical, social and spiritual wellbeing. For more information on Episcopal Senior Communities, Senior Produce Markets, or other ESC housing, programs, and services, please visit www.jtm-esc.org.