Nutrition is always key to health and wellbeing, but for some seniors, high costs and less mobility impedes them from getting that vital nourishment.
That’s why Second Harvest Food Bank hosts Cooking on a Budget classes at United Senior Services in Springfield.
Twelve people attended the most recent summer session on July 22, 2026, gathered around community tables with printed recipes to take home and try themselves.
Typically 10 to 15 people attend.
"We want to make sure that everybody is able to taste and get a little nibble of the food that we're cooking to see if they like it or not," said Natasha Ridenour, who teaches the classes.
This meeting was the second class of Second Harvest Food Bank’s summer cooking sessions, sharing recipes for mac and cheese and three ingredient cookies.
Mary and Randy Fisher attended their third class at United Senior Services. The couple said they enjoy meeting people through the sessions and trying new foods.
"I'm anxious to try the cookies. I've had mac and cheese, but I'm ready," Randy Fisher said as he held up a small bottle of Tobasco sauce he had brought with him.
The classes not only benefit the attendees, but also their friends and family whom they share their meals with, Ridenour said.
“I have one lady that her grandson lives with her and he will eat with her at home," she said. "So she just loves to be able to know that she can make these recipes and that he will eat the food, too.”
Shirley Harris is a Springfield resident who has been attending the cooking classes for as long as she can remember. She said she enjoys learning from Ridenour each week.
“Natasha is very helpful, very friendly and she makes it very interesting. And we always have a good time," she said. "She has good recipes and they’ve all been very good.”
The classes started as a way to teach senior commodity box recipients how to make nutritious meals from their 40 pound, monthly food deliveries.
“Sometimes we'll include three or four ingredients from the box, sometimes it's just one or two, but we do a comparison in each class of how much money we spent on the recipe, what came from that box," Ridenour said.
The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, or CSFP is federally funded and overseen by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. It's aimed at providing residents over the age of 60 with shelf-stable items such as canned meats, vegetables, fruits, juices, potatoes and cereal.
"It is a program that we offer here at the food bank, but it is done through the government," Ridenour said. "So they do all the income requirements. They let us know what our caseload is, how many we can serve a month."
Ridenour said any products not provided in the CSFP boxes is supplemented by outreach funds from the Community Health Foundation. About $5,000 is given each year to contribute to outreach and the purchase of any food not provided by the foodbank.
"Not only do I use it for my cooking class, but I use it to sometimes purchase swag or things like that," Ridenour said.
While funding changes have pushed Second Harvest Food Bank to skip the upcoming fall cooking classes, Ridenour said they will start up again in winter.
"My position was eliminated, and I was going to have to discontinue all outreach and all CSFP cooking classes, but we had some changes, and so now I am the CSFP specialist," she said. "I can still do outreach and cooking classes. So I will be back."
Ridenour hopes to open these classes to more people, including SNAP food aid recipients.
"We're looking at possibilities to expand this in more of a way to everybody," she said. "There's ways for us to be able to make this bigger in the future and so that's what our hope is."
