"A lot of times, I can't even get into the kitchen," said Jones, who relies on her Social Security check to cover the soaring costs of food and utilities.

But now the same costs are squeezing her food-service agency, and the estimated 20,000 senior nutrition programs across the country that serve millions of elderly and frail Americans.

While most needs are still being met, advocates for the elderly nationwide worry that seniors will go hungry. They blame a nearly 20 percent increase in fuel and food prices over the last year, flat or reduced government funding, and an ailing economy that yields fewer donations.

"We are just starting our new fiscal year," said Sue Daugherty-Rodriguez, chief operating officer for the Philadelphia program MANNA, "and we're very concerned that it's going to be a really tough year because of not just the fuel cost, but the food." MANNA expects to provide 900,000 meals this year to people with illnesses, such as AIDS and cancer, that put them at "nutritional risk."

MANNA recently stopped daily meal deliveries to clients and went to twice-a-week drop-offs. It is discussing going to once a week, but Daugherty-Rodriguez said some clients did not have large-enough refrigerators for that.

The agency relies on about 50 volunteer drivers. Ten have stopped driving because of fuel costs in the last two months, and 25 more have cut back. MANNA has not been able to find replacements.

"People aren't banging on our doors right now," Daugherty-Rodriguez said.

That means the seven drivers employed by MANNA are making more deliveries. That has increased fuel costs by a third over the last six months. It now costs about $150 a week to run each of the six trucks.

The Klein Branch of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia, which operates a kosher meals-on-wheels program and Cook for a Friend, also has had trouble recruiting new volunteer drivers. "It's really difficult now to get anyone to assist us," said Nina Cohen, emergency-food coordinator.

The center has 25 to 30 volunteer cooking groups, which donate both the food and their cooking expertise. It has had to subsidize food for some groups and is getting inquiries about help from more.

Using frozen food helps, but there are still problems.

At Aid for Friends, a 35-year-old program based in Philadelphia that provides food for 2,113 people, a volunteer driver takes each client seven days' worth of frozen meals at a time. The trips are usually short, and drivers have generally been able to absorb the extra gasoline costs, said Steven Schiavone, executive director.

The bigger problem is the packaging for the food - aluminum trays and plastic bags. That must be picked up at about 275 freezer sites, usually churches, in the region. Some groups have been balking at the higher cost of driving to Aid for Friends' headquarters in the Far Northeast, so the organization has had to use its own drivers more often to deliver the trays. That takes their time and gasoline money.

"It really stresses the system," Schiavone said. The program serves the five Southeastern Pennsylvania counties.

On top of that, the cost of the trays and other packaging has doubled in the last five or six years and now costs the program $100,000 a year.

Then there is the food. Volunteers are cooking fewer meals, and they have cut back more than usual this summer. As a result, the program itself, which spent $28,000 on food last year, likely will spend $45,000 this year.

Across the country, nearly 60 percent of the estimated 5,000 programs that belong to the Meals on Wheels Association of America have lost volunteers who cannot afford gasoline, said Enid A. Borden, president and chief executive officer of the program, which has been providing meals to Americans in need since 1954.

Nearly half the programs have eliminated routes or consolidated meal services. Thirty-eight percent have switched to delivering frozen in bulk rather than hot meals one day at a time, and 30 percent are cutting personal visits from five days a week to one.

"We're in a crisis, and it's just getting worse and worse," said Borden, who is urging Congress to increase money for senior nutrition programs at least 10 percent.

Two pending bills do not come close to that amount, said Peggy Ingraham, the association's senior vice president for public policy.

A House subcommittee is considering a 6.5 percent increase for senior nutrition programs for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, while a Senate subcommittee is considering a 5.7 percent increase. The federal earmark for the current fiscal year is $758 million.