In partnership with three Senior Nutrition Programs (SNPs) in rural Texas and supported by their respective Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), the DINE (Developing Innovative Nutrition Experiences) in Texas project aims to implement selected features from and assess fidelity to the Iowa Encore Café Model Toolkit. Over three years from May 2023 to April 2026, the project targets 355 unduplicated congregate meal participants across the following three senior nutrition programs: El Paso County, the City of Brownwood, and Meals on Wheels of Waco.

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

• Accomplishment of the desired objectives intend to help achieve the following measurable outcomes:
• Increased satisfaction with enhanced dining experience in the underserved and food insecure Older Texan participants with greatest social and economic needs;
• 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;
• Improved social determinants of health (SDOH) outcomes for underserved and food insecure Older Texan participants with greatest social and economic needs; and
• Increased site staff and stakeholder satisfaction with the Learning Collaborative strategies.
• Project team is tracking and measuring outcomes with help of a mixed methods approach.

This project joins PPRI’s Older Texans centered grant efforts since 2019 in modernizing the senior nutrition program sites in Texas through the Texas Congregate Meal Initiative project funded by Administration for Community Living.

The DINE in Texas project is 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.