Even though  Yantis is one of the regions smallest cities, it now enjoys the distinction of hosting the largest community meal site in all of East Texas. The average number of daily meals served at the site currently stands at a whopping seventy-nine (79)!  The Yantis community meal site grand opening is one of the initial steps of ETCOG's overall strategy to strengthen the Senior Nutrition Program while simultaneously improving meal quality.

Two years ago, the Senior Nutrition Program, comprised of both home-delivered and congregate/community meals  was administered through three ETCOG/AAA contractors. Ten of our fourteen counties were served by one contractor and the remaining four counties were split evenly by the remaining contractors. Participation in the congregate/community based meal program that was  intended to afford seniors an opportunity to connect and socialize together had dwindled to the point that the program, in most counties (including Wood), was on life support.   More alarming was the fact that no contingency plan existed  in the event that  any one of the existing contractors should fail. Even if such a plan existed, the entire Senior Nutrition Program relied on three meal providers,  with primary reliance on one contractor that administered the program in ten counties. Our region simply did not have a sufficient number of strong meal contractors in the system to begin building a reasonable system back up plan.     

About eighteen months ago, ETCOG/AAA staff began to take action to proactively address these systemic issues.   Our objectives once again is to strengthen the program and improve the quality of the service. We began the process of strengthening the system by adding a new meal contractor to the system  and by reassigning county service responsibilities among the expanded contractor base.   By contracting with Tradition's Restaurant for the Wood County pilot, we have expanded the contractor base yet again, and at least in Yantis we have improved the quality of the meal service with stellar results. Customers have a tendency to vote for a quality service with their feet.