Quick Take
In the past five years, Grey Bears’ free hot lunch program in Santa Cruz has grown from serving a few dozen volunteers to feeding up to 300 people a day, as more residents turn to the nonprofit for food and connection amid rising costs and isolation. For many — from retirees to unhoused residents — the daily meal offers not just nourishment, but a vital sense of belonging.
Dan Cooper, a retired anthropologist, and his wife, Irene, come to Grey Bears nearly every day, Monday through Friday, for lunch. On a Friday in October, Dan steadied himself with a cane while he waited in line for a hot meal dished out by the kitchen staff and volunteers inside the weathered warehouse that serves as the nonprofit’s Live Oak dining room and kitchen.
Eating off paper plates, the couple sat together with friends at a long fold-up table, and Dan occasionally waved at or chatted with other familiar faces.
It’s not necessarily the rock-bottom price that keeps the two octogenarians coming back – the meal is free to everyone. Nor is it the quality of the home-cooked meal. Cooper believes that their frequent lunches here have forged connections with fellow diners, many of whom are also regulars, which helps keep Irene’s age-related forgetfulness at bay.
“We can make our own food at home. But the experts say that in order to handle cognitive degeneration, socialization is one of the five main things,” he said. “We know some of these people, and she remembers, and is able to connect with the part of her memory that’s still working.”
Attendance at Grey Bears’ free hot lunch program has exploded over the past five years. Before 2020, the lunch was offered to about 20 to 40 volunteers and staff members daily, and was made with extra donations that weren’t usable for its grocery program.
During the pandemic and CZU Lightning Complex fires, Grey Bears decided to open its lunch program to everyone. Since then, word has spread, and the numbers have grown. On a normal day, 150 to 200 come for lunch. On Fridays, the meal program’s busiest day, the kitchen serves around 300.
This growth comes as residents of all ages struggle to make ends meet and Santa Cruz County grapples with the economic impacts of a pair of daunting challenges: It’s the nation’s least affordable rental market, and the county with the fastest-growing senior population in California.
Grey Bears’ primary mission is to feed seniors who are food-insecure – meaning they don’t have enough to eat, or don’t know where their next meal will come from – but its free hot lunch program has ballooned into a daily event that attracts people from across economic divides, from the unhoused to the comfortably retired, from elderly to young adults, many of whom say they return for the community as much as the food.
“In the last two years or so, interest has gone up tremendously,” said healthy food program director Danielle Wong. “It could be because the word is getting out more, or the need has gone up more.”
Every meal is made up of a hot item, which ranges from homemade Italian sausage, kale and sweet potato soup with crusty garlic bread, to lasagne, to Indian food. Visitors can also choose from an array of prepared salads donated by local grocery stores, sliced fruit and cheese, such as crisp Asian pears sliced with creamy brie, and trays of pre-portioned desserts that can include wedges of green Princess cake, New York cheesecake and thick chocolate chip blondies.
Visitors frequently also fill up a bag of groceries to take home, with items donated by local grocery stores and farms, like fresh tomatoes, gallons of milk, dry goods and packaged foods. Like the lunch program, this market is open to everyone.
Although many lunchtime diners are older adults, the crowd is cross-generational, with people in their 30s and 40s, as well as parents with young children. And while guests typically are food-insecure due to the county’s high cost of living, job scarcity or other economic factors, many people Lookout spoke to said interacting with volunteers and other regulars is one of the main reasons they keep coming back.
“We don’t ask questions, because people come to us for different reasons,” said Grey Bears executive director Jennifer Merchant. “They come to nourish their bodies, their souls, and if somebody needs food, we’re never going to turn them away. We have enough to support our community and community means a broad thing.”
William Maffei, 44, visited Grey Bears for the first time about a year ago and soon started volunteering every day by setting up tables and chairs and cleaning up after lunch. He is unhoused and said his situation often makes him feel isolated.
“It gets really depressing when you’re not able to get out, be active, be a part of a community and socialize with other people. Just coming to Grey Bears gives people a chance to connect and interact,” he said. “Although I know the program is primarily for seniors, they really don’t turn anyone away, and it gives people who are younger a chance to gain some of their wisdom.”
In addition to the “overwhelming” kindness of the volunteers, Maffei is inspired by hearing other diners’ stories of “where they came from, what adventures they’ve been on, what accomplishments, what triumphs, what tragedies, and how they overcame them,” he said.
For Maffei, volunteering is rewarding. “My grandmother used to say the best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own wrist,” he said. “If you have the ability and the time to help others, the world definitely needs it.”
Like 30% of diners at Grey Bears, according to a recent survey, Harmony Levy receives federal food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the modern equivalent of food stamps. But it’s still not enough to feed herself and her 3-year-old daughter. “I need help with food, and this really helps my family,” she said.
Levy, 32, works part-time as an administrative assistant at the nonprofit, in part because of the easy access to the market and the hot lunch program three days per week. She gives any extra groceries she takes home from the market to her brother, she said. She wants people to know that the program is available to young parents like herself who are struggling to make ends meet.
Other diners shared their stories anonymously to protect their privacy. One older woman told Lookout that after UC Santa Cruz laid her off over the summer, she started coming to Grey Bears several times a week for a meal and a bag of groceries, and often takes an extra pastry to heat up for breakfast the next morning. “Unemployment doesn’t get you very far. Now I don’t have to worry about food while I look for a new job,” she said.
A retired architect, 73, said he visits for lunch and groceries almost daily. Grey Bears saves him at least $100 a week, which helps offset the high cost of living in the area. “It’s comfortable, with caring staff, and plenty of seats,” he said of Grey Bears. “It’s a happy place.”
Santa Cruz County has more than 72,000 residents over the age of 59. Older adults represent 26% of the total population – a figure expected to grow to nearly 30% by 2030, according to the county’s State of the Workforce report released in 2023. Between 2010 and 2020, the county’s 65-84 age bracket grew by 81% according to U.S. Census data, compared to a roughly 40% increase statewide.
Last week, a new survey on aging in the county published by the Human Services Department found that many seniors experience “significantly higher levels” of loneliness, with 1 in 5 seniors saying they feel lonely or isolated at least some of the time. “Residents need help connecting with one another,” the report advised.
Grey Bears is aware that the meal program often feeds the soul as well as the body.
“There’s so much to be gleaned from social connection,” said development manager Kayla Traber. “We know that social isolation is very challenging for seniors and has serious health effects associated with it. So being able to access the community is a lifeline for so many seniors and community members.”
It’s become a second home to many volunteers, too. For the past three years, Richard Emigh, a retired building designer, has spent 30 hours a week serving lunch, delivering bags of groceries, repairing lamps and electronics in the nonprofit’s fix-it shop.
He originally started volunteering to get out of the house, but it soon took on a deeper meaning. “I’m a firm believer that if you stay active, you might live a better life,” he said. “The thing that surprised me is that what I enjoy most is the camaraderie. On Monday, they had a birthday party for me, with cards, and it was fun.”
For decades, Grey Bears has gathered perishable items before they spoil from grocery stores and large restaurants, a process known as “gleaning.” So when a state law went into effect in 2022 that required large food businesses to donate a “maximum amount” of excess food to social service organizations, Grey Bears was ready to handle the influx. In 2024, the nonprofit recovered almost 2 million pounds of food, it said – enough to fill more than 400,000 grocery bags.
It was well-timed to the surge in interest in the lunch and market programs, said Traber, and Grey Bears was able to expand its grocery rescue program to accommodate hundreds of new guests: “Our incredible team goes out six days a week, and we’re able to gather as much food as we possibly can to make sure that we can feed that growing population of people needing meals.”
Over the past year, Grey Bears added an additional 120 volunteers, for a total of 826, but Traber admits that the organization is worried its aging facilities won’t be able to accommodate increasing demand and the larger quantities of food needed to support it.
Grey Bears expects more people to seek out its services after new work requirements for SNAP recipients go into effect on Nov. 1, limiting the number of people who can receive federal financial benefits to help with groceries. In September, the closure of the Mental Health Client Action Network, a key mental health service that served lunch to about 50 people daily, also brought people to its door. The number of unhoused people seeking Gret Bears’ services grew from 19% to 27% over the past year, it said.
Program coordinators insist that there’s plenty of food for everyone – it’s just a matter of getting it to them. Working at Grey Bears has changed how Traber sees abundance, she said: “Every day, we see so much food come in, and it really makes you realize that the food that the community needs exists here; it’s just a matter of getting it to the community members that need it.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.