Founded in 2016, Saving Our Seniors (SOS) helps low-income and disabled seniors in Pinellas County live healthy, independent lives, regardless of income or insurance. Pinellas Community Foundation (PCF) first supported that work in 2020, and four grants and $83,715 later, SOS has grown from a collection of donated medical equipment in its founder’s one-bedroom apartment into a fresh food network that reaches seniors in neighborhoods across Pinellas County.
Filling the Gap Between Medicare and No Care
SOS began with a problem founder Kelli Casto saw over and over again as an occupational therapist in the Tampa Bay area: seniors going without the wheelchairs, walkers, shower chairs, and hospital beds they needed to stay safe and independent at home. Financial hardship, long wait lists, and Medicare denials kept that equipment out of reach. Medicare covers only three necessary pieces of medical equipment every five years, and going without them puts seniors at much higher risk of returning to the hospital or a rehab center.
That’s when Kelli started collecting gently used equipment herself. Within six months, her apartment couldn’t hold it all. The collection moved to a garage, then a storage unit, and eventually to a donated 2,500-square-foot warehouse. From the start, SOS held to a no-wait policy, delivering equipment within seven days of a request, often by Kelli herself.
Answering the Call in 2020
When the pandemic arrived, the seniors SOS served were among the most vulnerable to the virus, and many of the places they relied on closed their doors. Local senior centers shut down, other providers cut services and hours, all while requests for meals and support climbed. SOS launched its meal program earlier than planned, in March 2020, delivering frozen meals to seniors’ doors with no contact, typically within 48 hours of a request.
That’s when the PCF partnership began. A $10,000 grant from the Tampa Bay Resiliency Fund supported SOS’s pandemic meal program at a time when in-person fundraising had stopped and donors were holding back. The effort grew into SOS’s first mobile food pantry, and Kelli’s work earned her recognition as a Lightning Community Hero.
From Meals to a Fresh Market
As the pandemic went on, seniors told SOS that inflation was outpacing their fixed incomes, and some were at risk of losing their homes. SOS responded with its Fresh Market program, bringing free groceries and household supplies directly to mobile home parks and low-income housing communities. When seniors said what they needed most was fresh produce, fruits and vegetables became the focus.
The program filled a real need, but the logistics were difficult. With no vehicle of its own, SOS rented U-Hauls for large loads, used staff members’ personal cars for smaller ones, and rented trucks to haul its Fresh Market concession trailer. Those stopgaps cost roughly $36,000 a year, and personal vehicles had no refrigeration for perishable food traveling long distances. Meanwhile, a single pickup of food that cost about $750 in 2019 had climbed to more than $1,800.
The Grant That Changed the Logistics
In 2023, federal recovery funds* gave SOS what it had needed since the Fresh Market began: $38,715 for a refrigerated delivery van and a walk-in fridge. The fridge meant SOS could store more food and make fewer trips to the market. The van did even more. According to SOS, it also allowed the organization to hire a staff member and feed more seniors.
For a small organization serving seniors across Pinellas County, that one purchase replaced years of rentals and borrowed cars with equipment built for the job, and helped SOS fill the gap the pandemic had revealed in the community.
Fresh Produce, Delivered With Dignity
In 2025, the partnership continued through Senior Citizens Services (SCS), a former local nonprofit that established a fund at PCF in 2019 to keep supporting older residents of Pinellas County. A $15,000 SCS grant supported SOS’s pop-up Fresh Farmers Markets and ProducePAC, its in-home produce delivery program.
The Markets set up free “shopping” tables of fresh fruits and vegetables at places seniors can easily reach, including Sunshine Senior Center in St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park Senior Center, Gulfport Methodist Church, and Bay Pointe Towers Senior Apartments in South Pasadena. ProducePAC was created after seniors raised concerns about getting to the Markets, so homebound seniors could still receive fresh food at their door. Over the grant period, SCS funding helped SOS reach 938 seniors: 750 through the Markets and 188 homebound seniors through home delivery.
One of them was Mr. Joe^. After retiring, he was diagnosed with cancer and began chemotherapy. As medical bills mounted, he could no longer afford the fresh fruits and vegetables his doctor recommended. When ProducePAC delivered produce to his home, he shared: “This is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt heard and noticed. I wanted to eat healthier, but I simply couldn’t afford it. This delivery changed my whole week.”
That same year, SOS chose to focus its Markets exclusively on Pinellas County, where it was founded and where most of the seniors it serves live. Listening to the community also led SOS to open a neighborhood produce store in South St. Petersburg in March 2025. The store offers fresh produce below big-box grocery prices, accepts SNAP, Fresh Access Bucks, and Medicare Advantage Healthy Food Cards, and serves as SOS’s headquarters, bringing affordable fresh food to seniors and their families in a neighborhood that has historically had limited access to it.
Growing the Partnership
Most recently, SOS received a $20,000 Operating Grant for 2026-2027. SOS plans to use it to hire a dedicated part-time program coordinator, which will let the organization host more Fresh Farmers Markets across Pinellas County, and to reformat the inside of its produce van to add a cold-press juice station. That idea also came straight from seniors, who asked for softer, nutrient-rich, easy-to-digest options. Today, SOS’s programs provide free fruits and vegetables to more than 42,000 seniors a year in Pinellas County.
Following Seniors’ Lead
Look at how SOS has grown, and a pattern shows up. Seniors said they couldn’t get to the Markets, so SOS started bringing produce to their doors. They asked for softer, easier-to-digest food, so a juice station is on the way. Neighbors in South St. Petersburg said they needed an affordable place to buy fresh food, so SOS opened a store.
PCF’s support has followed that same lead, arriving at the moments when listening turned into action: meals when local senior centers closed, a refrigerated van when rentals and borrowed cars couldn’t keep up, fresh produce for homebound seniors, and now a coordinator to bring more Markets to more Pinellas County neighborhoods. Mr. Joe put it simply after his delivery arrived: he felt heard and noticed. Six years in, that is still what this partnership is built on.
Inspired in supporting the Senior Citizens Service fund to support organizations like Saving Our Seniors? Learn more at: https://pinellascf.org/fund/scsfund/
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* Federal recovery funds refers to the ARPA Nonprofit Capital Project Fund.
^ Names may have been changed.
