Each weekday morning, drivers arrive on the Little Tokyo Towers at 10 a.m. carrying valuable cargo: seniors’ meals individually wrapped in tinfoil. Not too salty, not too candy, every bento field is fastidiously portioned by meals group to satisfy federal vitamin requirements.
Since 1976, Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies has sought to deal with meals insecurity and social isolation amongst Asian American seniors in Los Angeles. Its meals are bought for $3.50 every and supplied free of charge to these unable to pay.
“People have this misconception of ‘all Asians are wealthy,’” mentioned Darlene Kuba, president of Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies. “Well, that’s not the case.”
One in 10 Asian People face poverty within the U.S., a reality that’s usually disguised by the wealth hole that exists between completely different ethnic teams.
A lady walks away along with her each day meal supplied by the nonprofit Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies on the Little Tokyo Towers in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies delivers greater than 100 meals each day to seniors in Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights — an important service to those that can not prepare dinner or store for groceries independently. However this system is dealing with an unsure future. A lot of its employees and volunteers are the identical age because the folks they serve.
Maybe extra urgent are the funding challenges the meals program is dealing with. Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies is funded by town of Los Angeles by a subcontract it has with the Watts Labor Neighborhood Motion Committee, which in flip is contracted with town Division of Getting older.
Kuba alleges the Watts Labor Neighborhood Motion Committee has not been reimbursing her group totally or on time for senior providers, which has led to delays in paying the caterer, Far Bar, a gastropub in Little Tokyo, for meals.
Yuji Katsumata, left, and Yoshiko Becker put together meals supplied by Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
The Watts Labor Neighborhood Motion Committee, one of many largest contractors with town of Los Angeles, supplies neighborhood providers all through downtown and South L.A. Chief Government Tim Watkins contends that Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies had overcharged for providers. The Division of Getting older declined to remark publicly on the problem and mentioned it hoped to carry the 2 events to a decision.
In the meantime, time and funding are operating out for the meals program, Kuba mentioned. Elevating consciousness for fundraising to maintain this system going has been troublesome, and the ready listing of fifty folks is just getting longer, she mentioned.
Setsuko Nakama, the chief director of this system, is now in her seventies however nonetheless takes the bus and prepare from Riverside to Little Tokyo each morning to assist ship two dozen meals to Boyle Heights residents. Greedy the railing with one hand and the meals with the opposite, she inches her approach up the steps in her slippers to 1 particular person’s house.
On this explicit day, it’s Keyoshi Saito’s ninetieth birthday and Nakama has introduced his each day copy of the Los Angeles Occasions with an additional dessert alongside his meal.
Setsuko Nakama, who’s in her seventies, walks up stairs to ship a meal to a senior residing in a Boyle Heights house.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
“We used to deliver more than 40 meals,” Nakama recalled. Boyle Heights was one of many early outstanding Japanese American communities that continued to stay culturally important even after the incarceration of Japanese People throughout World Battle II. “But now most of the Japanese and Japanese Americans passed away [or] they moved out” with the arrival of Latino immigrants, Nakama mentioned.
Many remaining seniors stay alone in Boyle Heights in rent-controlled residences the place they wrestle to maneuver about even of their lounge, a lot much less their neighborhood.
“I don’t drive anymore,” mentioned Shirley Nakatsuru, a 74-year-old who has issues along with her eyesight. Nakatsuru, who lives alone along with her 15-year-old cat Hanako, has her requirements strewn on a desk in entrance of her: cleaning soap, water, nutritional vitamins and dentures. It’s evident from her environment that Nakatsuru faces mobility points in cleansing up after herself.
Shirley Nakatsuru, 74, lives alone along with her cat in her rent-controlled Boyle Heights house and depends on the meals program for her vitamin.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
“A lot of times I try to get something I can microwave,” mentioned Nakatsuru, who not cooks for herself. However it’s not at all times straightforward discovering wholesome choices due to her diabetes. Nakatsuru receives senior meals — an important a part of her weight loss program — 5 days per week, delivered to her door by Nakama. “It helps me have more food,” Nakatsuru mentioned.
A USC examine discovered that Asian People face greater charges of vitamin insecurity, or an absence of entry to wholesome meals. That’s the place teams like Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies can fill the hole by offering culturally appropriate meals whereas additionally bridging potential language obstacles that exist for Asian seniors.
Each month, a menu is curated to the tastes of Asian seniors who crave meals which can be acquainted and comforting. Though the senior meal program supplies a lot of its programming and providers in Japanese, a good portion of residents residing within the Little Tokyo Towers who obtain meals are Chinese language and Korean.
“Japanese food, I like,” mentioned Soonyong Hahm, a 79-year-old Korean lady who sat along with her buddies within the eating corridor of Little Tokyo Towers. “Korean food is too hot.” She and her buddies benefit from the selection that’s ready by the Asian fusion Far Bar. The hamburgers and odeng soup, a kind of Korean fish cake dish, are amongst their favorites.
Sukhee Kim, 98, enjoys a meal supplied by the senior meals program on the Little Tokyo Towers in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
It’s not simply meals that Little Tokyo Senior Vitamin Companies supplies but in addition wellness checks. On a couple of event, volunteers have referred to as 911 once they discovered a senior harm or unresponsive throughout a meal supply.
In a single occasion, a senior “was calling from the room, ‘Can you help me? Can you call the manager?’ She had [fallen] in the room,” mentioned Mariko Miyazato, a website supervisor on the Little Tokyo Towers. Generally the meal deliveries provide the one human contact for these homebound seniors, who in any other case may very well be forgotten if not for the employees and volunteers.
Richard Witsoe mentioned he generally feels just like the odd man out as one among two white males who stay on this backed seniors constructing of about 300 residents. However he credit Miyazato and the meal service for serving to to unite him and his neighbors.
“There’s a group of ladies here. I know them. When I don’t see them, I get worried,” mentioned the 73-year-old. “I think a few of them [also] go, ‘Oh, where’s Mr. Witsoe?’ ”
Little Tokyo Towers resident Richard Witsoe, 73, heart, says the meal service helps unite him and his neighbors.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
He had developed a routine watching out for the opposite seniors who additionally decide up meals. He mentioned it’s a a lot friendlier and safer atmosphere than the one he skilled at his earlier house close to MacArthur Park, the place he frightened about his security stepping exterior.
“As a group, they’re all very upbeat, very nice, very friendly, which is really nice,” Witsoe mentioned of his neighbors.
Yuji Katsumata prepares to ship meals on the Little Tokyo Towers.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Kuba mentioned it’s by the generosity of their vendor, the proprietor of Far Bar, Don Tahara, that they’ve been in a position to proceed offering meals immediately to seniors in want.
“When we don’t get paid by the third-party organization that’s supposed to reimburse us for the meals, he’ll pick up the cost,” Kuba mentioned. “He’ll put it on his credit card to buy the food, make the food, and he delivers it here.”
Tahara is aware of it’s in all probability unhealthy enterprise sense to maintain placing his restaurant in debt for months at a time. However as a longtime neighborhood member in Little Tokyo, the 70-year-old feels a accountability to feed his neighbors, particularly since many are on fastened incomes.
“I see how the older people in Little Tokyo shop at the local markets,” Tahara mentioned. “They buy a minimum amount of food and it appears they’re always looking for the best way to extend the meals.”
Setsuko Nakama delivers a meal to Toshiko Ishihara, 86, who lives on her personal in Boyle Heights.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Volunteer William Tuyor is aware of how essential these meals are.
“This is like a third of their nutrition for a day. If they don’t get this, they’re basically wasting away,” mentioned the 38-year-old, who simply graduated from USC’s graduate vitamin program.
He mentioned that for some seniors, that is the one meals they’ve for the day, they usually ration out the meal to final by breakfast, lunch and dinner.
As one among a handful of youthful volunteers, he’s frightened in regards to the longevity of this system as he’s seen employees and volunteers develop feeble and unable to assist ship meals.
At one level when the elevators have been below upkeep, aged volunteers needed to climb dozen of stairs on their very own to ship meals to residents all the way in which as much as the fifteenth ground.
“It kind of scares me because I can’t be there all the time. … I just don’t want to see that service kind of die out,” Tuyor mentioned.
