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Elderbridge Agency On Aging Gives Annual Report

November 29, 2023 Steve Schwaller

(Spirit Lake)– An agency that provides services to those age 60 and over in northwest Iowa is seeing a big increase in demand for services. At the same time, Shelly Sindt, Chief Executive Officer of Elderbridge Agency on Aging, says they’ve been experiencing a decline in funding. Sindt says one area in particular that is seeing a big demand is their Dinner Date program…

“Our meal program has increased significantly. So in FY ’22 we increased services to our 29 county area by 27.5 percent, and in FY ’23 we went up another 7.6 percent. So we are serving a lot more people with the same dollars. And for right now it does not look like our federal dollars are going to be increased through the Older Americans Act. I have been in contact with all of our federal legislators encouraging them to increase the Older Americans Act. At this point we’ll be lucky if we don’t get cut just because of the climate.”

Because of the funding crunch, Sindt says Elderbridge has had to make some adjustments, including standardized criteria for Dinner Date meals. Meanwhile, Sindt says the age 60 and over population in our area continues to grow…

“We’re not at 33.82 percent of the Dickinson county population is age 60 and older.”

Sindt says Elderbridge provided services this past year to 375 residents of Dickinson county, amounting to a little more than $300,000.

Sindt gave her annual report at Tuesday’s Dickinson County Board of Supervisors meeting.

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