Jan. 11, 2026, 5:00 a.m. MT
- A nonprofit program called Stove to Table delivers homemade meals to low-income seniors in Maricopa County.
- The program, which started during the pandemic, also provides social check-ins to reduce isolation among seniors.
- Meals are designed to be nutritious and help teach seniors about healthy eating habits.
- With support from a Season for Sharing grant, the program prepared nearly 17,000 meals for 450 seniors.
When Lucia Abetiya, a resident at a Phoenix senior living facility, lifts the lid off her weekly homemade meal delivery, she sometimes catches a scent that takes her back to her Arizona childhood: fresh vegetables, picked close to the earth, like those she would bring home as a farm worker.
But the diverse cuisine also allows her to journey to places she’s never been.
One week, it was a Greek-style plate with gyro meat and homemade tzatziki. Another week was a curry-spiced chicken wrap, with warm flavors she had never tried; then, Japanese-inspired teriyaki and sesame noodles.
“I can’t stress enough how much we are enjoying these meals,” Abetiya said. “They add excitement and adventure to our weeks.”
The meals come through Stove to Table, a program run by Advance Community, a global health nonprofit that provides food and health education to vulnerable communities. The Stove to Table program delivers homemade, culturally thoughtful food to low-income seniors across Maricopa County.
Abetiya, 72, lives at Paseo Abetiya, an independent senior living facility named for her late husband’s family. On Thursdays, residents gather around the community’s activity center, eyeing the clock and asking the same question: Is it time yet?
“Everybody looks forward to it,” she said.
With support from a Season for Sharing 2025–2026 grant, Advance Community planned and prepared nearly 17,000 healthy meals for 450 seniors across the valley experiencing food or housing insecurity.
For Abetiya, a single meal can stretch into two.
“I don’t eat a lot,” she said. “So, like the meal today, I eat my lunch and the other half will be my dinner tonight.”
That matters in a community where many residents live with chronic health conditions, limited mobility and tight budgets.
“Diabetes, high blood pressure, lupus, arthritis, cancer, you name it, somebody in this complex has it,” Abetiya said.
The meals are designed to be nutritious without sacrificing taste, said Paul Holtzman, the nutrition program’s director.
“Everything we serve is homemade,” said Holtzman, speaking to The Arizona Republic in the dining room at Paseo Abetiya, where he had just completed a Thursday lunch delivery. “We make everything from scratch, down to the salad dressings. We want our flavors to feel authentic and exciting.”
Meals inspire healthy eating habits for Arizona seniors
The program began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many seniors were isolated and afraid to leave home, Holtzman said. Though the program started small, serving about 25 meals a week, today it has grown to serve hundreds, delivered through a network of staff, volunteers and partnering non-profits.
For Abetiya, the homemade meals provide more than sustenance. They give her a food education.
“For the first time, we’re learning how to eat. That’s something many of us here never learned,” said Abetiya, reflecting on the new healthy habits she has begun to integrate into her lifestyle.
“Now, we’re like, ‘OK, if we are going to have pasta, let’s have some salad with it.’”
Advance Community says the impact of Stove to Table goes far beyond calories. Weekly deliveries double as brief wellness and social check-ins, offering reliable touchpoints that can help catch problems early and reduce isolation.
Abetiya has lived that firsthand.
During the pandemic, when residents could not gather or socialize, the weekly deliveries became a lifeline.
“Once a week, we looked forward to them knocking on our door,” she said. “And it was not just the food, but it was somebody that came to check on us, to talk to us.”
She remembers how delivery teams asked how she was feeling and, at times, helped connect residents to basic health checks like blood pressure readings.
When she got sick with COVID early on, she said she could barely get out of bed. But she still heard the doorbell.
“Those girls would ring and ring my doorbell,” Abetiya said. “So I would know to come out and get my meal.”
Sometimes, she said, they added small holiday touches, like a little bag of sugar-free candy.
“It made it even more to look forward to,” she said.
A community that watches out for each other
Inside Paseo Abetiya, the meals fit into a broader safety net that residents have built together.
Abetiya describes the community as family. If someone has not been seen in a few days, neighbors ask around. If nobody has an answer, someone checks on them.
“If we know somebody’s sick, somebody helps bring them stuff to eat or pick up their medications,” she said.
She credits onsite staff and coordinators for helping residents access resources, from utility support to food boxes and benefits navigation.
It is a support system that has been her lifeline.
Her husband, she said, was ill for years. Caring for him meant hard choices, including losing their home.
“It was a choice of giving him treatment or having a roof over my head,” she said.
Now, she said, living in a place with consistent services brings relief, not only to her but to her children.
“I’m very fortunate that I live in this community with so much support,” she said.
Building dignity into the menu
Holtzman said Stove to Table addresses the fear that accompanies food insecurity.
“People don’t always know where their next meal is coming from,” he said. For some, he added, the delivered meal may be the only meal they get that day.
That is why the program puts so much effort into balancing protein and vegetables and offering meals that feel sophisticated and dignified.
“We try to bring in some international flavors that they’re not used to,” he said. “It’s a new experience.”
For Abetiya, that “new experience” sits right alongside memories of the old ones: onions peeled in the field, vegetables brought home from the ranches and a childhood shaped by making the most of whatever was available.
Now, she said, the weekly meal helps her do something similar, but with a different feeling: instead of stretching food, she is stretching possibility.
How to donate to Season for Sharing
Your gift to Season for Sharing helps organizations like Advance Community provide healthy meals and connections for under-resourced seniors across Arizona.
Season for Sharing is The Arizona Republic’s annual fundraising campaign launched in 1993. Since it began, the effort has raised and distributed more than $75 million to charities across Arizona. Those gifts have gone on to fight hunger, bolster healthcare access and help those battling housing insecurity.
Neighbors helping neighbors, because the need is here, and the moment is now.
There are several ways you can donate to this campaign:
- Fill out the secure online form at sharing.azcentral.com.
- Go online at facebook.com/seasonforsharing and look for the featured “DONATE HERE” post.
- Clip the coupon on Page 4A of The Arizona Republic, fill it out and mail it to P.O. Box 29250, Phoenix, AZ 85038-9250.
Thinking about making a larger gift, a gift of securities/stock, or an interfund gift? Contact Silvia Solis, Director of Partnerships and Community Relations at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, at silvia.solisgarza@usatodayco.com or 602-239-4413.
