In partnership with three Senior Nutrition Programs (SNPs) in rural Texas and supported by their respective Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), the DINE in Texas project aims to implement selected features from and assess fidelity to the Iowa Encore Café Model Toolkit. The project targets 355 unduplicated congregate meal participants across the following nutrition programs: El Paso County, the City of Brownwood, and Meals on Wheels of Waco.

The goals of the project are to successfully implement the Toolkit strategies through a Learning Collaborative to improve the site profiles and client social determinants of health (SDOH) outcomes at the three partner sites and to develop and implement robust sustainability strategies that will promote the continuation of the model.

Accomplishment of these objectives will help achieve the following measurable outcomes:

1. Increased satisfaction with enhanced dining experience in the underserved and food insecure Older Texan participants with greatest social and economic needs;
2. Increased visibility of participating congregate programs and access to nutritious meals for underserved and food insecure Older Texan participants with greatest social and economic needs;
3. Improved social determinants of health (SDOH) outcomes for underserved and food insecure Older Texan participants with greatest social and economic needs; and
4. Increased site staff and stakeholder satisfaction with the Learning Collaborative strategies.

This project was supported, in part by grant numbers 90INNU0013 and 90INNU0054, from the Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.