Feeding healthy meals to children and seniors
while teaching about good nutrition

As Marin’s population ages, Community Action Marin is providing healthy meals to seniors aged 60 and older at community centers from Southern Marin to Novato. Meals are funded through the federal Older Americans Act, distributed through a contract with County of Marin Aging and Adult Services. With the contract, our Central Kitchen team is helping to ensure that more people across generations who may be at risk of losing their independence have community-based nutrition services available to them.

Congregate meals are available weekdays at a number of locations in Marin. See our chart with addresses and days/hours when meals are available below.  There are no income requirements for participation.

For more information and to make a reservation, call 415.473.4636. Meals are available for all participants at no cost, but there is a suggested contribution of $3.

Vivalon, the San Rafael nonprofit that serves older residents and people with disabilities, opened its new “healthy aging campus” at Third and Brooks streets in downtown San Rafael on January 2, 2024. The building includes a cafe on the second floor, where Community Action Marin provides lunch, prepared by the cooks in our Central Kitchen. The agency brings the meals to the cafe’s warming kitchen daily, where volunteers serve it. This is yet another way that the agency feeds seniors with the nutrient-rich food from our farms and provides an opportunity for seniors to build social connections and community.

The cost of meals range between $8 for Vivalon members and $15 for non-members. The café is open from 9am to 3pm Monday and 9am to 5pm on Tuesday – Friday.

Children in the program receive meals that meet or exceed nutritional guidelines as established by the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Take a look at our sample menus below to see the healthy and nutritious meals children receive.

Please see the posted calendars at our childcare center sites for the most up to date menus.

Supported by funders, parents, partners, and community, we are committed to healthy eating and active living for all of us. Our menus include new items that include fresh produce, as well as familiar favorites.  Our team of food and nutrition professionals, including a Registered Dietitian, collaborate on our menus and ensure all items are healthy and our meals, balanced. For example, one of the newest breakfast items is banana sushi! This balanced breakfast provides a whole grain (whole wheat tortilla), protein (sunflower seed butter), fresh fruit (banana), and milk. It can be assembled by the children to create a fun and hands-on learning experience with food at our child development sites.

We utilize a curriculum called Garden of Eatin’ to teach children about food, nutrition, cooking, gardening, agriculture, nature, and related topics. Children enrolled in our Early Children and Family Services programs also learn about healthy eating by the example of their caregivers, who model healthy habits, manners, and good choices in the classroom.

All of the hard work that goes into our production farm makes us proud. In 2023 our campus farms produced 1,098.5 pounds and 18 different varieties of fresh produce. The harvest included 25 pounds of organic Bok Choy and 179 pounds of Tomatoes! These were delivered to the kitchen and this beautiful produce went right into the meals we served to the children in our programs. 

Through a partnership with ExtraFood and San Anselmo-based Insalata’s Restaurant, the restauranteur is using produce gathered from our Production Farm as well as ingredients that ExtraFood is gathering from other locations in Marin, to cook soups twice a week in Community Action Marin’s Central Kitchen. Volunteers deliver the soup to each of our Children and Family Services childcare centers, as well as to two of our Senior Congregant Meal locations.