No Senior Alone: San Diego Seniors Community Foundation Awards 25 Local Senior Centers & Nonprofits with Grants to Host Holiday Events

The San Diego Seniors Community Foundation (SDSCF) will be awarding grants to 25 local senior centers and nonprofit organizations to brighten the holidays for socially isolated seniors throughout the region.

One in three San Diego seniors age 65+ live alone; an estimated 150,000 senior orphans in San Diego County.

Senior orphans are seniors who have never been married, maybe married and had no kids then may have been widowed, or they have no family living in the area. The other worst-case scenario is that they have outlived their friends on top of everything else.

Social isolation is a silent killer and is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! The SDSCF is working to ensure every senior has someone they can trust by using the senior center to get them engaged and know they don’t have to spend the holidays alone. With the #NoSeniorAlone campaign, they hope to brighten the holidays for vulnerable seniors and introduce all seniors to their local senior center and all it has to offer, including a group of new friends.

The grants are tailored to help senior centers and nonprofit agencies create holiday-themed events and programming. The goal? To bring joy to socially isolated seniors through a variety of holiday activities, including parties, letters, food, gifts and home deliveries.

Now in its third year, the grant program represents the largest holiday effort for seniors in the region, partnering with an unprecedented number of senior centers and nonprofit organizations to support more than 5,000 older adults. The grants are funded through SDSCF’s No Senior Alone Matching Holiday Challenge, an ongoing fundraising campaign that hopes to double the amount raised in 2022 to $150,000 to benefit twice as many seniors as last year.

SDSCF is currently seeking the San Diego community’s support to help raise additional contributions. Donations can be made at sdscf.org/givingtuesday. The matching campaign is anchored by a generous $50,000 grant from the Sahm Family Foundation, and runs now through Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29.

“Social isolation among seniors was already a public health crisis before the pandemic, and it’s worse than ever,” said Bob Kelly, founder of the SDSCF. “Many of our oldest community members are homebound and alone during the holidays. This grant program brings holiday comfort, company, and celebrations to San Diego’s older adults throughout the county thanks to a strong network of nonprofits that support this population. We are proud to fulfill every holiday grant request received this year.”

Despite the constraints of the pandemic, SDSCF rolled out a holiday grant campaign in 2020 that resulted in 13 awards totaling $41,500 to organizations serving seniors from Fallbrook to Chula Vista. The largest effort of its kind to date. In that inaugural year, No Senior Alone grants assisted about 2,000 older adults through holiday drive-through parties, gift bags, poinsettias, technology to connect with loved ones, meals and more.

Last year’s efforts doubled those of 2020, raising $85,000 in 2021.

For more information on the campaign, visit www.sdscf.org.