BELCHERTOWN - The Select Board unanimously agreed Monday to go to bat for the Council on Aging in its effort to resume preparing and delivering frozen meals to seniors.

Bill Korzenowski, the Council on Aging executive director, told the Select Board that since Oct. 1 the agency had to stop delivering its own prepared frozen food to seniors under an order by the state Executive Office of Elder Affairs.

"They told us that we could no longer cook and deliver our own meals and that we had to use a vendor for frozen foods," Korzenowski said. "If we kept delivering our own frozen meals we would lose our funding, which amounts to about $30,000" annually. The Executive Office of Elder Affairs in May 2010 established a policy requiring all packaged and frozen meals to be delivered by vendor which complies with state and federal regulations and is inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"The reason they created the policy was to minimize the risk of food-borne illness to elders served as part of the elderly nutrition program," Priscilla Chalmers, executive director of WestMass ElderCare in Holyoke said in a telephone interview Monday. Her agency receives state grants and provides programs in seven communities including Belchertown.

Korzenowski told the Select Board that the council had received a waiver from the state allowing its own prepared and frozen meals through last Sept. 30, but an extension was denied.

"In September they just refused us," said Korzenowski. "They were not saying that our food wasn't safe, they just wanted us to do things their way,"

Korzenowski said he sent letters to state legislators but heard nothing in return.

"The reason we are coming to you tonight, is to ask the select board to advocate on our behalf," he said.

He maintains that his program, rather than a vendor, is better able to serve the specific needs of the seniors in Belchertown.

"We know what each individual senior needs and we can accommodate them," said Korzenowski. "A vendor that serves mass-produced food can't do that. We want to go the extra mile and we should be able to do that."

He added that the Council on Aging is inspected every six months by the state.

Select Board member Ronald Aponte said he supports the council in obtaining a waiver from the state allowing it to freeze meals for seniors at home.

"It doesn't make sense that the COA is punished for doing something better safer and cheaper," said Aponte. "I fully support the idea of this board writing a letter of support. They are doing a good job and they are doing it right. They are satisfying the seniors of Belchertown."

The board unanimously voted to direct the town administrator to write a letter to Ann L. Hartstein, secretary of elder affairs, seeking the waiver.