Stacie Mack, Director of Model Cities Senior Wellness Center, holds up a Model Cities t-shirt with Mary Lazare, the federal Director of the Department of Aging and Community Living
“This Is My Happy Place!”
That’s what the members of Model Cities Senior Wellness Center told our guests from the Federal Department of Aging and Community Living (ACL) last week.
March is National Nutrition Month, and ACL chose Model Cities as the place to see how federal dollars were Serving Up Solutionsfor older adult nutrition.
The highest levels of leadership in older adult funding were deeply impressed by what they saw at Model Cities. Increasing access to Good Food is a core pillar of Seabury – not only did our guests see a Center bustling with activity (everything from the Older Blind Program to a barre room for our own MC Steppers!), but they were able to see how increasing access to healthy food is woven throughout programming:
A free lunch program for all DC residents over 60
Nutrition education 2x/week, with a weekly cooking demo
A community garden designed and cultivated by members
Group transportation to additional food resources and affordable grocery stores around the District
Clockwise from left: Director Lazare posing with Stacie Mack and two members of Model Cities; ACL, DACL, Seabury staff, and guests; Ward 5 Dietitian Sunithi Selveraj teaching members about the new dietary recommendations for Americans; Seabury CEO Dawn Quattlebaum hosting lunch with national, state, and local experts on older adult nutrition challenges and opportunities
We were also able to host an impromptu lunch with our ACL guests, and invited our DACL partners, LeadingAge DC, and national experts from Meals on Wheels and the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs to talk about the challenges and opportunities facing seniors in this historic moment – more than 1 in 10 DC older adults are food insecure.
One particular brightspot: we were proud to lift up the Seabury Connectoras an innovation in connecting isolated seniors with food resources. In FY25 we provided over 500 trips connecting people to resources like Martha’s Table or Capital Area Food Bank’s Silver Market.
In FY26, we are looking forward to announcing (soon!) another innovation which will almost double the number of trips made with seniors, connecting them with resources that will improve their access to Good Housing, Good Food, Good Community, and Good Resources.
Stacie Mack, Dawn Quattlebaum, DACL Director Charon Hines, and ACL Director Mary Lazare celebrate the impact that Model Cities Senior Wellness Center is making in the lives of older adults and the Ward 5 community.
More Than Just a Ride: How a Seabury Nutritionist Supported Grocery Shuttle Transforms Grocery Shopping for Seniors
Real stories from our Ward 5 community members who are taking control of their health and budgets
The bus pulled up to the Gettysburg Community Dining Site in Ward 5 on a typical Tuesday morning, but this wasn’t just any grocery shuttle.
Today, eight older adults were about to experience something unique in our region: a grocery shopping trip designed specifically with their needs, budgets, and health goals in mind, bringing together multiple resources from Seabury Resources for Aging®.
The Reality: Grocery Shopping Shouldn’t Be Stressful
“Sometimes I hate going to the grocery store because prices are so high,” shared one member as we boarded the Seabury Connector bus.
Her words resonated with everyone on board. With food prices 29% higher than they were just five years ago, too many of our community members are facing impossible choices between the groceries they need and the budgets they must maintain.
For these members, this trip represented something powerful: taking control of both health and finances with expert support and peer connection.
Enter the Seabury Connector: More Than Transportation
Seabury Connector isn’t just another bus service—it’s the only senior-focused group transportation program in our region.
Our mission goes beyond getting from point A to point B: while we can provide affordable group trips and social outings, we can also connect older adults to resources they can’t access on their own, including nonprofit food partners, affordable grocery stores, senior farmers’ markets, and more.
Today’s destination was strategic: Trader Joe’s for healthy, prepared meals that could stretch over multiple days, followed by Mega Mart for affordable fruits, vegetables, and protein. But the real magic happened with who came along for the ride.
Bridging the Gap: Real-World Nutrition Education
Adanna Ibe, RDN, Seabury’s Ward 5 nutritionist, stepped onto the bus with shopping bags and a warm smile. As a professional nutritionist attached to Seabury through our Ward 5 Lead Agency partnership, she represented something powerful on this trip: the bridge between medical advice received in a doctor’s office and practical, real-world application.
“This is the gap doctors can’t fill,” Adanna explained as we headed to our first stop. “Being with people as they make new choices and deciphering what nutrition labels mean for their lives.”
Shopping with Purpose and Strategy
At Trader Joe’s, Adanna worked with members who had been recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes, while others had questions about renal diets. One member was dealing with “dumping” challenges—digestive issues that require careful food selection. Rather than navigating these concerns alone, members had expert guidance right in the store aisles.
“You can do one Teriyaki Chicken Bowl a day, but not three. The rest have to be sensible,” Adanna advised a member managing a low-sodium diet for kidney disease. “If you are going to have one meal that’s high salt, the rest need to be low salt.”
Her approach acknowledges the reality of aging bodies and busy lives. “Sodium is the cost of convenience food. It doesn’t mean you can’t have them—it just means you have to balance them the rest of the day.”
The Art of Strategic Shopping
With a budget goal of $35 per person, the shopping trip became an exercise in strategic planning. “It’s about meal planning too,” Adanna shared. “Getting the prepared meal to make cooking easy, but then supplementing it with rice and vegetables to make it a whole meal that’s affordable and can last multiple days.”
At Mega Mart, members loaded up on affordable produce and protein, learning how to combine their free food resources with smart purchases for maximum nutrition and value.
Adanna helped them understand how their Capital Area Food Bank items could work alongside fresh purchases, creating meal plans that respected both their budgets and their health needs.
The Impact: More Than Dollars Saved
“I know I saved over $100 coming to these stores as opposed to the regular stores I go to,” one member calculated as we loaded back onto the bus. But the savings went beyond money—it was about confidence, knowledge, and community support.
Members left with:
Practical knowledge about reading nutrition labels for their specific health needs
Strategies for combining free food resources with affordable purchases
Meal planning techniques that stretch dollars and nutrition
Most importantly, the confidence that they’re not navigating these challenges alone
Looking Forward: A Model for Community-Centered Aging
This grocery shuttle trip represents what makes Seabury’s approach unique. We don’t just provide transportation – or just provide meals – or just provide health education. We weave these services together, recognizing that successful aging happens in community, with support, and with dignity.
Whether you’re someone actively participating in our programs or you’re thinking about aging services for a loved one, this grocery shuttle demonstrates that innovation in aging doesn’t require high-tech solutions. Sometimes it’s about thoughtful integration of transportation, nutrition education, and peer support—meeting people exactly where they are.
For our members, that means stepping off the bus with more than groceries. They return home with knowledge, confidence, and the reassurance that aging doesn’t mean losing independence or community connection.
Interested in learning more about Seabury Connector? Whether you’re exploring options for yourself or a family member, visit our Seabury Connector page to contact us and discover how we’re connecting older adults to the resources they need to thrive in their communities.
Real stories from our Ward 5 community members who are taking control of their health and budgets
The bus pulled up to the Gettysburg Community Dining Site in Ward 5 on a typical Tuesday morning, but this wasn’t just any grocery shuttle. Today, eight older adults were about to experience something unique in our region: a grocery shopping trip designed specifically with their needs, budgets, and health goals in mind, bringing together multiple resources from Seabury Resources for Aging®.
The Reality: Grocery Shopping Shouldn’t Be Stressful
“Sometimes I hate going to the grocery store because prices are so high,” shared one member as we boarded the Seabury Connector bus. Her words resonated with everyone on board. With food prices 29% higher than they were just five years ago, too many of our community members are facing impossible choices between the groceries they need and the budgets they must maintain.
For these members, this trip represented something powerful: taking control of both health and finances with expert support and peer connection.
Enter the Seabury Connector: More Than Transportation
Seabury Connector isn’t just another bus service—it’s the only senior-focused group transportation program in our region. Our mission goes beyond getting from point A to point B; while we can provide affordable group trips and social outings, we can also connect older adults to resources they can’t access on their own, including nonprofit food partners, affordable grocery stores, senior farmers’ markets, and more.
Today’s destination was strategic: Trader Joe’s for healthy, prepared meals that could stretch over multiple days, followed by Mega Mart for affordable fruits, vegetables, and protein. But the real magic happened with who came along for the ride.
Bridging the Gap: Real-World Nutrition Education
Adanna Ibe, RDN, Seabury’s Ward 5 nutritionist, stepped onto the bus with shopping bags and a warm smile. As a professional nutritionist attached to Seabury through our Ward 5 Lead Agency partnership, she represented something powerful on this trip: the bridge between medical advice received in a doctor’s office and practical, real-world application.
“This is the gap doctors can’t fill,” Adanna explained as we headed to our first stop. “Being with people as they make new choices and deciphering what nutrition labels mean for their lives.”
Shopping with Purpose and Strategy
At Trader Joe’s, Adanna worked with members who had been recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes, while others had questions about renal diets. One member was dealing with “dumping” challenges—digestive issues that require careful food selection. Rather than navigating these concerns alone, members had expert guidance right in the store aisles.
“You can do one Teriyaki Chicken Bowl a day, but not three. The rest have to be sensible,” Adanna advised a member managing a low-sodium diet for kidney disease. “If you are going to have one meal that’s high salt, the rest need to be low salt.”
Her approach acknowledges the reality of aging bodies and busy lives. “Sodium is the cost of convenience food. It doesn’t mean you can’t have them—it just means you have to balance them the rest of the day.”
The Art of Strategic Shopping
With a budget goal of $35 per person, the shopping trip became an exercise in strategic planning. “It’s about meal planning too,” Adanna shared. “Getting the prepared meal to make cooking easy, but then supplementing it with rice and vegetables to make it a whole meal that’s affordable and can last multiple days.”
At Mega Mart, members loaded up on affordable produce and protein, learning how to combine their free food resources with smart purchases for maximum nutrition and value. Adanna helped them understand how their Capital Area Food Bank items could work alongside fresh purchases, creating meal plans that respected both their budgets and their health needs.
The Impact: More Than Dollars Saved
“I know I saved over $100 coming to these stores as opposed to the regular stores I go to,” one member calculated as we loaded back onto the bus. But the savings went beyond money—it was about confidence, knowledge, and community support.
Members left with:
Practical knowledge about reading nutrition labels for their specific health needs
Strategies for combining free food resources with affordable purchases
Meal planning techniques that stretch dollars and nutrition
Most importantly, the confidence that they’re not navigating these challenges alone
Looking Forward: A Model for Community-Centered Aging
This grocery shuttle trip represents what makes Seabury’s approach unique. We don’t just provide transportation – or just provide meals – or just provide health education. We weave these services together, recognizing that successful aging happens in community, with support, and with dignity.
Whether you’re someone actively participating in our programs or you’re thinking about aging services for a loved one, this grocery shuttle demonstrates that innovation in aging doesn’t require high-tech solutions. Sometimes it’s about thoughtful integration of transportation, nutrition education, and peer support—meeting people exactly where they are.
For our members, that means stepping off the bus with more than groceries. They return home with knowledge, confidence, and the reassurance that aging doesn’t mean losing independence or community connection.
Interested in learning more about Seabury Connector? Whether you’re exploring options for yourself or a family member, visit our Seabury Connector page
Interview with Crystal Carr Townsend of The Washington Home
The Washington Home is the Service Partner Honoree at the 2025 Leadership in Aging. The Washington Home has been a longtime DC institution, supporting older adults as a nursing home and hospice provider since 1888; since becoming a foundation in 2020, The Washington Home has tackled hunger and isolation in Washington, DC with a variety of strategic investments.
Ahead of Leadership in Aging, Seabury sat down with Crystal Carr Townsend, CEO of the Washington Home, to learn more about their work and why hunger in particular is such a pressing issue for DC seniors.
What is the mission of The Washington Home?
The mission of The Washington Home is to provide funding to entities that create and deliver innovative, compassionate and well-managed programs to improve the quality of life for elderly and/or terminally ill residents in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. We invest in local, community efforts to strategically address social isolation, caregiver support, food insecurity, and access to specialized health care.
TWH became a private foundation in 2020. Prior to this, since our inception in 1888 TWH had a long history of providing hospice care and serving the critically ill and the older adult community in the District and we continue to honor this legacy through our work today.
The other area is around Food Insecurity: 13% of older adults live in a “food desert,” 12,000 older adults across the DC area are food insecure. Knowing what the health consequences are of not having access to healthy foods, or enough food, that is a part of our focus area to address as well.
And then addressing and supporting efforts for mitigating social isolation through integrated approaches. Knowing the impact that social emotional wellness has on our community, we have 74% of older adults living alone, what we call “aging solo” – how do we help support access to vital activities, care & case management, and connectivity within the community to thrive.
At The Washington Home, we want to improve the quality of life for older adults and every day we ask ourselves, how do we invest in the delivery of innovative, compassionate, and well-managed programs that will do that?
Why is it so important to address senior hunger right now?
The number of older people living in a food desert – 36,000 is an incredible number of people without access to healthy food.
There are many strategies for addressing this challenge that help meet the unique needs of communities, households, and individuals. It is not a one size fits all solution and sometimes a layered response. One piece that’s so important in addressing hunger is the community meals that meet the immediate food needs as well as help to address social isolation and provide opportunities to bring in other resources and engage the members like Seabury is doing.
There is also the aspect of ensuring there’s healthy food that can be accessed at home, whether it’s through fresh groceries or a meal delivery, especially for those who might be living alone and find cooking overwhelming or dealing with cognitive impairment, health issues, and mobility challenges…
Food is essential for health outcomes for older adults and we at the Foundation know that food is medicine.
Because whether we’re looking at it as improving healthier living, addressing social isolation, stabilizing A1C3 levels, achieving better BMI levels, etc, we know that health is such a strong indicator for well-being.
There are so many great partners working in this space ensuring our community has access to fresh food, focusing on our connection to the agricultural community, while there are other organizations that are really integrated with our healthcare system.
For example: we have food pantries with federally qualified health centers that are actually able to refer their patients to the pantry ensuring access to healthy foods, and the health centers can measure the changes in their patients’ health outcomes. Other organizations focus on medically tailored meals specific to chronic disease management that are also tied to health outcomes. There are also food prescription programs and pop-up food pantries and grocery delivery that increase access to healthy foods.
What do you think are the root causes of food insecurity for older adults in the District?
First: food is expensive.
And while it’s on all of us to encourage individuals to enroll in benefits and programs which can help alleviate some of that cost burden, we also know it won’t be sufficient to meet an individual or household’s needs in a month and that there’s a gap there.
We also know what kind of income it takes to live in the District. There is a delta between what it takes to survive in the District of Columbia and what residents earn, particularly if they have a fixed income. These structural deficits lead people to make vital choices every day about what they’re going to be spending their limited income on. Sometimes it’s rent, paying utilities, buying food, covering healthcare costs – all hard choices…
So as an investor with limited resources, what is The Washington Home’s role in combating food insecurity in older adults?
There are a couple of strategies: one is helping to create a food security network. We’ve been working for the last couple of years to bring together the food providers that are addressing food insecurity needs and curate a food insecurity map for older adults. We’re really trying to look at where people are accessing services and where services are being provided. Then we overlay other socio-economic indicators so we can ascertain who’s doing what and where – that ecosystem mapping is a vital first step to tackling the next question: how do we strategize together? What are some of the big barriers for ensuring older adults have access to healthy foods?
One of the big areas is transportation access. So while we might have resources available in the community, it’s still a challenge for many reasons for individuals to access those resources whether it be lack of mobility, cognitive impairment, safety, or a host of other reasons that are prohibiting individuals from accessing services. But one area we keep hearing about is that safe, reliable transportation that centers around older adults is extremely important.
So for us as an investor it’s looking at: how do we help do the ecosystem mapping, identify the problem, identify where we are in addressing the problem, continue to look at what are the barriers and root causes to us actually being able to solve the problem, and then the next phase: how do we create efficiencies, collaborations, and partnerships? Because we are all better when we are doing better together.
For example, Seabury has excellent transportation resources; how can this infrastructure help the food partners better meet the food security challenge? So here you have this incredible asset and resource that could be enhanced to scale the capacity for others to meet our older adult residents’ food security needs.
As a collaborator and convener, that’s our role – to enhance.
The Seabury Connector bringing older adults to access additional food resources at Martha’s Table.
How do you see The Washington Home and Seabury partnering together to address food insecurity?
So it’s very interesting that Seabury represents everything that we’ve been talking about. There is a continuum – Seabury is a Lead Agency providing community meals, and supporting that is one obvious way we’re addressing food insecurity together.
But there’s also the [Model Cities] Senior Wellness Center that’s providing access to healthy food during those core hours. That’s another area, and then you’re partnering with others like the Capital Area Food Bank to bring in supplemental groceries. It’s this continuum – there isn’t one element that will meet the food insecurity of the whole household, but it’s through your collaborations and referral services that you’re ensuring members have access to the necessary food providers and partners to meet their household needs. Also the transportation aspect we just discussed.
What does it mean for The Washington Home to be an honoree at Leadership in Aging?
As I mentioned earlier, The Washington Home has a long legacy in Washington, DC of serving the older adult community and those with critical illness, and it is just incredible that this legacy is being recognized in such a way with a fabulous partner. We’re very grateful that our long history of being a leader and serving the older adult community is being recognized in such a way.
What inspired you to join The Washington Home?
When I looked at The Washington Home and all that they were doing to change the delivery models within the healthcare, food, and caregiving systems to better serve older adults through their investments – I was inspired. Our work centers the older adult experience, giving immense focus to addressing the needs of the fastest growing population in our community, ensuring that there is respect and dignity, and a thriving community for older adults. And then I got to meet the fabulous board and team that has such tremendous passion for the work we do.
What are the biggest misconceptions about aging and what do you think we can do to change those misconceptions?
We need to reframe our image of aging as a society. I am inspired each time I go out into the community and talk with residents and leave feeling like I want to be like them when I grow up. I think helping society see how they can continue to accomplish that in the next half of their lives is vital to countering the misconceptions.
Aging is thriving, invigorating, and there is no age limit on fun, getting educated, making new friends, or learning how to give back differently to your community.
What impact is The Washington Home making in addressing senior hunger?
In Fiscal Year 2024, through our investments we increased coverage to serve aggregately 32,000 older adults in need of nourishing food. Some of these numbers include older adults receiving a couple different resources to have their food security needs met.
We invested over $1,000,000 last year to address access to healthy foods, and $445,000 went to healthy food access, $200,000 went to home meal delivery, and $350,000 went to community meals.
What advice would you give to individuals who are looking to advocate for older adults in their communities, where should they start?
One of the areas that we’re seeing as a great opportunity is really with volunteerism. And in connectivity, there’s this huge Village movement we’re hoping to see scale so that it enters every community.
Volunteerism is an opportunity to get to know older adults and their needs, whether it’s around transportation to food access, or to a doctor’s appointment, or helping them connect to a [senior] wellness center or going to their yoga classes. I think all those efforts serve as a voice to older adults through action and be a part of the solution.
Another way to serve, not through direct volunteering, is to serve on Boards that serve older adults. I always look at it: how do you give your time, treasure, and talents to causes that you believe in?
We’re at such a confluence of needs at the moment, with affordable housing and hunger – there’s a lot of scarcity but also everything’s more expensive. What can people do right now to be most impactful?
As you said it’s multi-layered. No one truly knows right now all the areas that will be impacted or how they’ll be impacted, we just know that impact is happening. So I think this is the time to begin strategizing now on what are the things we most want to keep and hold on to. What are the things that we’re going to say have to stay in place for our community?
And then how do we all collaborate and join in on a plan? Not just one organization at a time, it’s going to have to be the whole sector coming together. How do we preserve what we want to keep in our community?
What is most important for you as you think about getting older?
I want the opportunity to remain engaged in the community, to give back in an impactful way, to be safe, to have access to quality healthcare, and still be able to take care of my family and feel vital. Maximize life, whether it’s through engagement or activities, or being able to volunteer.
When I look at the model of the [senior] wellness centers that’s happening where the members aren’t just going to programming, they’re helping to create programming, and being engaged in the process, it is the members that “make” the wellness center with staff serving as facilitators and guides. I want an environment when I get older that creates that, where I can still have agency, respect given, and dignity.
“We are dealing with seniors in isolation. We eat alone, watch TV alone; this program gives us togetherness. When we eat together we eat more. When we eat alone we nibble. We don’t want to cook alone. So many of us are isolated.” – Ms. Juanita “Peaches” Patterson
“When people come down we see how caregivers are treating the elders, and that’s very important. It helps neighbors to be treated right. That’s what this program has allowed us to do, elders are ready to come down again. Covid separated us, this program brought us all together again.” – Ms. Joyce Brown
Ladies of Gettysburg Community Dining Site
In each Ward of the District of Columbia, there is a Lead Agency that acts as the front-line partner for senior resources. These agencies operate hotlines for residents to call and learn about resources, provide referrals for case management in DC’s central office, and operate community dining sites from 10 AM – 2 PM.
It is Seabury Resources for Aging’s great honor to operate 11 meal programs around Wards 5 and 6, from Fort Totten to Southwest Waterfront.
DC is facing a serious senior hunger crisis. According to Capital Area Food Bank, 1 in 3 seniors in DC is experiencing hunger, the third highest rate in the country. Food prices are up 22% from 2020, and while this affects everyone’s pocketbook, the effect is especially harmful to older adults living with limited fixed incomes.
“I feel the program is very important. We have elders eating out of cans, who want hot meals. Having hot meals is a very good thing.” – Ms. Adelaide Ebrom
Seabury serves over 3,000 older adults at our dining sites. That’s over 115,000 meals a year, which members may not be eating otherwise. Some members don’t have enough food period – one member described a neighbor who’s fridge is completely empty. The meal he gets at Seabury is the only meal he’s going to eat all day.
Healthy, nutritious meal at Seabury’s Gettysburg dining site
But some members wouldn’t eat without Seabury because, without the community Seabury facilitates, there’s just no incentive to eat. Loneliness and depression are serious concerns for seniors living alone, especially after the pandemic isolation. That social isolation broke down many of the support systems people had, and without them neighbors have suffered both mentally and physically.
“Seabury has picked me up; I wouldn’t be coming out of my bed. I’m speaking completely honestly, it has helped me with my depression. I have something to get up for now, my hygiene is up.” – Ms. Joyce Brown
In conjunction with DC’s Department of Aging and Community Living, Seabury recently opened a new community dining site at Gettysburg Senior Living in Fort Lincoln. The residents were ecstatic! They had been living in a building with a community room that was closed most of the time, and without regular community activities it was hard to organize enough participants for trips or other social events.
A sign-up list on the ground floor isn’t enough to build community – it takes regular engagement with your neighbors, shared experiences, common interests and inside jokes.
It means having a real opportunity to build relationships in a safe, supportive space with people who care about you.
“Before Seabury the common room was locked. There are so many new people now, many neighbors passed away. It wasn’t easy to build community without shared activities and shared meals. Now folks I haven’t seen in a long time are coming down. Meals bring more people down.” – Ms. Adelaide Ebrom
Now with the new dining site at Gettysburg, residents have a chance to reconnect and the community helps them stay engaged in life. Bus trips with the Seabury Connector provide opportunities to get outside the apartment and meet new people, and organized activities across DC like the Brain Games provide members something to be excited about. Says Ms. CT, “We need something to be excited about. And then we talk to our family and are excited, and they get excited because we’re excited.”
Community Dining Sites are antidotes to the twin issues of social isolation and senior hunger
And beyond that, with Seabury Connector support it provides members the chance to visit other nonprofit organizations and connect to their resources, as well as grocery stores, restaurants, and even parts of the city they might not have visited in decades. One member described visiting the MLK monument recently, and that being the first time she saw the Mall since she joined the March on Washington in 1963. It was a powerful moment to reconnect with her personal history in the city she had lived in all her life.
“By us being here, and seeing each other every day, it helps us to check in on each other. We call each other if someone is late or doesn’t show up.” – Ms. CT Durbin-Washington
“[The bus trips] give us an excuse to get outside of the building and get sunshine. There’s more vitamins in sunshine than in some food! The trip around the city, everyone had memories from around the city. The trips take us places where we can take advantage of other support systems, like Bread for the City or Martha’s Table.” – Ms. Joyce Brown
Community Dining Sites are life changing
But they are only a foundation for the community that members are hungry for and build together. Having a chance to eat together every day and play games brings people together in a way that nothing else does. Members call each other if someone is late, they eye professional caregivers critically, and make sure their neighbors are being treated well. When someone is grieving, lunch provides motivation to leave their apartment and stay connected to their friends, when otherwise it would be all too easy to retreat and stay isolated.
Seabury hosts meal programs at nine Dining Sites and two Wellness Centers throughout Wards 5 & 6. You can see a list of our sites and calendars of activities at https://www.seaburyresources.org/agingservices.
