Good Food Collective and Dolores County Senior Services representatives explain food, transportation and home chores options at a community meeting Wednesday afternoon, June 4, 2025 at Rico Town Hall. Center-left: Alix Midgley - Rural Food Access Coordinator, The Good Food Collective. Center-right: Alisa Schultz, Director - Dolores County Senior Services.

Ore Cart photo
June 4, 2025

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Seniors home chores assistance & emergency button also available.

Frozen meals weekly delivery and all-public on-demand shuttle service will be considered.

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In this report

1) Food Pantry
2) Seniors homechore, homemaker "emergency call button" services available now
3) County senior meals service at Dove Creek could be delivered to Rico, if . . .
4) On-demand public transportation
5) Funding and logistics

by Allyn Svoboda
Publisher

1) Food Pantry

Town staff is preparing a second floor town hall room for use by a community food pantry. The service has been in planning stage with Dolores County for a few years, according to Town Clerk Anna Wolfe. The Rico food pantry would be a satellite of an existing food distribution service at Dove Creek. Some food items will be income-qualified.

The Good Food Collective location is Durango, and is the source of food supplies for the Dove Creek pantry. It provides food system and agriculture support services in the Four Corners region:

• coordination and support for various community groups promoting a healthy local food system.
• improving food security and health equity by reducing food waste.
• assisting farmers and ranchers with solutions to sustainable agriculture challenges.

List above is a summary of more detailed descriptions at Good Food Collective What We Do website page.

Future food bank room at Rico CO Town Hall.

Ore Cart photo
June 4, 2025

2) Seniors homechore, homemaker "emergency call button" services available now

Dolores County Senior Services provides assistance to elderly persons needing help with housekeeping chores at their homes. This service is described at Dolores County (DC) Senior Services website - Homechore and Homemaker Program:

The Homechore and Homemaker Program provides services to the elderly in their home. Home Chore provides services designed to increase the safety of the individual through minor home modification and chore maintenance. Homemaker services provide light housekeeping services for the elderly in their homes when they are not able to do activities of daily living themselves. They receive two hours a week of light housekeeping, laundry, minor cooking, and errands as needed.

Spring cleaning, window washing and carpet shampoo are examples of homemaker services, explained Alisa Schultz, Director of Dolores County Senior Services, at the June 4 Rico presentation. Safety modifications examples include grab bars and ramps.

The senior or elderly client must find someone to do the work, she added. Dolores County will pay $20 per hour for work completed, but there is a maximum limit.

Emergency call button is for elderly persons to notify their caregivers when an accident such as a fall occurs at home. This is described at the DC Senior Services National Family Caregiver Program tab:

We also provide a Carelink Button for their loved one to be used in case of emergency such as a fall. This enables the Caregiver to be able to go to work, appointments, or shopping without worrying about the safety of the one they are caring for.

3) County senior meals service at Dove Creek could be delivered to Rico, if . . .

Dolores County Senior Services serves two hot lunches at the Cahone Senior Center and one evening meal at First Baptist Church in Dove Creek weekly, excepting holidays. Deliveries to homes are available, as described at the DC Senior Services website - Senior Nutrition Program:

Home delivered meals are delivered three times a week on the same days. Frozen home delivered meals are provided for the homebound for Wednesday and Friday or when no hot meals are served. Also, a week’s worth of frozen meals are delivered on Friday for homebound clients who live at a distance that prevents hot meal delivery.

If frozen meals for seniors are delivered to Rico weekly in the future, at least five participants will be required, explained Alisa.

Other details:

• A part-driver based at Rico would hired as a Dolores County employee.
• Funding for the proposed Rico senior frozen meals must be from sources other than Dolores County revenues.
• Board of County Commissioners has issued a hiring freeze.
• State of Colorado funds for this type of service will be reduced by 25%.
• Cost to prepare senior meals is $20 - $25 per serving.

4) On-demand public transportation

Public transportation services is another option which could be available to Rico if funding were available in the future.

A summary of details from DC Senior Services website - Senior and Public Transportation:

• Dolores County Senior and Public Transportation provides a demand-response transit service for Dove Creek area residents (including Cahone) to out-of-county destinations:
• Egnar, Pleasant View, Cortez, and Durango in Colorado
• Monticello and Moab in Utah
• Farmington, New Mexico
• Hours of service - 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday - Friday and for pre-scheduled special events. A 24-hour notice is requested to schedule rides. Scheduling of rides is determined on a first call basis.

A set fare schedule for public clients and a suggested donation schedule for senior clients is provided.

Medicaid transportation is also provided through cooperation with Social Services in identifying clients that qualify.

A twice-monthly Rico-to-Cortez shuttle using Montezuma County transportation service operated in the second half of 2023, but was discontinued due to low number of passengers.

5) Funding and logistics

Dolores County Senior Services director Alisa Schultz provided more details about meals and transportation services in June 5 email reply to an Ore Cart inquiry:

. . . The senior frozen meals would require other funding and will not be available until funding could be secured. You are correct about the transportation as far as the driver will be a Rico resident who would be a part time employee of Dolores County at 26 hours per week. The frozen meals will be brought to Rico by one of our local drivers and brought to the Rico food bank at the same time and day every week. The eligibility forms will be able to be completed over the phone for all programs. There is still a lot of work to do in order to get the meal and transportation programs up and running in Rico. The first step was to get the feedback from Rico residents and now I will go to the Commissioner's and discuss where we go from here. I will be in touch with Susan at the library with updates from here.

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