Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan - Senior Outreach

Mission: To provide compassionate, quality, professional services and support to people in need.

Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan (CCSEM) is a community service organization covering a six of the southeast Michigan counties, offering 20 programs including but not limited to senior services, adoption and foster care, mental health, and basic needs.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan (CCSEM) created the Senior Outreach Program. Our first goal was to support seniors who were food insecure. By the middle of 2020, we took the outreach program from a reactionary initiative to a full-fledged part of the CCSEM collection of social services.

The Senior Outreach Program is supported through the USDA. We currently serve clients in Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne counties.

CCSEM Senior Outreach works with low income seniors across the metro Detroit area so they may age in place with dignity by staying in their own homes.

When we created the Senior Outreach Program, we created a pantry, partnered with Gleaners Food Bank, and developed the infrastructure and processes to deliver a complete set of groceries to 60-70 households per week. As the program progressed through the spring and summer of 2020, we learned that the pandemic did not create food insecurity for seniors but merely highlighted it.

Now, each delivery our clients receive includes enough food for, at minimum, 21 meals plus snacks that all add up to meet USDA recommendations for healthy eating. We work with our clients to cater to any dietary needs. We also supply household cleaning and personal hygiene supplies, all of which lead to our clients’ improved physical and emotional states.