Did you know that, every month, more than 1,300 meals are served to Lafayette County seniors? Did you also know that the longtime organization that served those meals is no more, and this summer it has shifted to Lafayette County Aging and Disability Resource Center?

If you didn’t know the latter, its because of people like ADRC Manager Dana Harcus and the rest of the ADRC staff, who have tried to deal with changeover without impacting residents, while dealing with their own major changeover — the dissolution of the regional ADRC, which is taking place at the end of this year.

“We want to make sure our consumers are aware of all the changes,” noted Harcus. “The meals are going to be served, they will continue to be served, and they will continue to be the healthy meals that they have expected.”

“It’s just a lot of work behind the scenes,” Harcus continued.

For decades, the Seniors United for Nutrition program had been a non-profit handling the senior meal programs in Lafayette and Iowa counties.

Rising costs, and trouble finding a leader for the program in the past couple of years put a burden on the SUN program, and looking at limited additional dollars being available from Iowa and Lafayette counties due to strict constraints on the property tax levies, the SUN board voted to disband.

Lafayette County started running the program here, starting June 1.

In June, 374 meals were served at the five meal centers across the county — Belmont, Benton, Darlington, Shullsburg, and Blanchardville, which is at the River Bend Cafe. Shullsburg and Benton still have meals prepared at their sites, while the rest are meals brought in.

The county also delivered 948 meals to seniors at home.

Belmont has had the biggest number of changes, now getting all of their meals shipped over from Lafayette Manor, and not currently having an active manager.

ADRC has hired Emily Hermanson to oversee the aging meal sites, and she has gotten into the work immediately, overseeing the Belmont site daily for the time being.

“You can continue to eat here, and we want you to eat here,” Harcus shared about Belmont. 

When there is a manager in place in Belmont, Hermanson will have some time opened up to begin handling a proper assessment of the program to review those attending congregate meal sites, reviewing those who get meals delivered, and looking at ways to make sure the program is better utilized by senior residents.

When giving a report, Harcus noted that during the Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays, the number of calls increased to ADRC, as family members often visit during holidays. One of the topics often brought up in those calls is about food insecurity, as well as other issues like housing and support.

Trying to make sure residents are aware, but do not notice much, if any changes, is a goal. “Internally making sure all our contracts are signed and up to date,” Harcus continued.

“We would love to increase participation in the meal program,” Harcus shared, noting they would look at different ideas like meal vouchers, or other options.

Regional ADRC disbanding

This change in the meal program, with the county taking it over, comes as the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Southwest Wisconsin is being disbanded, and Lafayette County will be going it alone as a whole separate ADRC.

Earlier this year, Green County, which is part of the four-county ADRC region, along with Lafayette, Iowa, and Grant Counties, announced its intention to remove itself from the multi-county group, and go it alone.

The move was not surprising, given the pullback from he state on incentives for regional entities.

It was back in 2008, when Lafayette County’s Commission on Aging saw changes with its interaction with the state for services offered to different groups. Services for the elderly and the disabled were pushed towards having regional coverage, instead of being handled by individual counties.

One example is long-term care, which was placed in independent agencies. This model led to the eventual consolidation of most of the different offices in the state.

For other services, they were placed under the umbrella of Family Care, and county centers on aging saw different services expand, as they began to serve more and more people, not just seniors.

And the creation of the Aging and Disability Resource Center, or ADRC, was created.

ADRC currently handles a diverse set of services and programs. They handle the senior meal programs, various transportation services, have specialists for issues like dementia, help students with disabilities with the transition into the adult world, and more.

In those first years, Lafayette County was part of an eight-county region, which included Crawford, Richland, Vernon, and Juneau counties.

Those counties broke off from the original region to form ADRC of Eagle Country.

Harcus was not concerned about the change, as for most items, like services, the county was already operating independently, as the regional entity helped with reporting on programs for funding, as well as coordinated certain specialists an individual county could not operate on their own.

Like the dementia specialists - there are currently two dementia specialists in the region, one covering two counties.

With Green County leaving, handling the specialists will have to change, but the four counties have already been in talks with each other, and the state, to have two counties be the fiscal agents for the specialists, with the other two teaming up with the first two, to share the services.

“It makes sense to not have the regional staff anymore, the ways funding has gone with the state in recent years,” Harcus shared, noting that while the counties will take over reporting, it means that funding stays local and goes into programming.

One area will be the prevention specialist, which Lafayette will likely continue to contract with Green County, as Lafayette doesn’t have a staffer that is trained for the program.

“I am not concerned at all with anything that involves things for the public,” Harcus shared. “We still have great staff here who will be doing the job.”

Drivers needed

Do you have a valid driver’s license, and time to spend driving and talking during the week? Then maybe you could think about becoming a senior driver for area residents.

Harcus gave a report on the drivers Lafayette County has for its senior driving program - which helps individuals get to their medical appointments. The county regularly sees six people handling much of the driving.

Last month, Dana shared with the board that one of their best drivers has gotten a full-time job, and would no longer be able to drive.

Thankfully, when she was attending programs ADRC had at the Lafayette County Fair last Friday, she received an email that a person had come in to apply to be a new driver.

“It was a great email because our transportation program is focused on getting people to their medical appointments. If we don’t get people to their medical appointments, we end up with more people going to nursing homes, or assisted living facilities.”

Those drivers keep people healthy. “If they don’t have a driver, they are not going.”

When asked what a dream scenario would be, Harcus said that ideally if they had 10 drivers to fulfill the transportation program.

Between drivers and funding that comes from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Harcus said she could not expand the drivers program to where she would like to, to go beyond simply medical appointments. 

“The county can only put so much into a program.”

The need for drivers is just part of numerous items that would be on Harcus’ list to improve. “We are a smaller county, so we are always needing more caregivers, needing more transportation services, more socialization, a lot more socialization — allowing people to go out and do more things in Lafayette County. Those are things we would love to look into. I also want to look into having more volunteers…those are the things I would like to improve on.