Spotlight On: Meals on Wheels

Written by: Kate Snyder, Executive Assistant

Hunger Services. Housing Services. Children & Youth Services. Food Pantry. SNAPs. Safe Haven. Drop-In Center. Youth Business Initiative. Soup Kitchen. Here at EECM, we reach out to the community through a wide variety of different programs. In fact, we have close to 20 different programs running at any given time. While this is (of course!) fabulous because it means that we are helping a lot of people, the litany of service offerings can sometimes seem overwhelming to friends of EECM who don’t have the opportunity to witness our day-to-day operations. So I thought I’d take some time every now and again to shine a spotlight on one of our programs.

Let’s start with Meals on Wheels (MOW). The basic premise of Meals on Wheels is to deliver meals to individuals who are unable to cook for themselves. Most Meals on Wheels programs are only available to individuals who are over the age of 60 – our program is unique in that we serve anyone who is homebound. We have several clients who are younger than 60 but have a disability that makes meal preparation difficult.

MOW deliveries each day actually include two meals, one hot and one cold. The cold meal is prepared as a bag lunch, with a sandwich, fruit, slice of bread with butter, milk and juice. The hot meal includes a main dish, prepared by EECM’s cook, a vegetable, and a starch side dish (such as potatoes or rice). Each client also receives a bowl of hot soup each day. We make sure that meals are delivered to our clients within one hour of their preparation, ensuring that they receive fresh, hot food. Many times, our clients are waiting at the door, with the table set, ready to dig in! Most of the time, they eat the hot meal for lunch and then save the bagged food for a lighter evening meal.

We only make deliveries Monday through Friday, so on Fridays, we send extra, frozen meals to see our clients through the weekend. In the winter, we also give each client an “emergency box” that has non-perishable food items in case we get bad weather that prevents our volunteers from delivering for a day or two.

Our staff and volunteers provide personalized care to our Meals on Wheels clients. For example, our hunger services case manager works with clients to respond to dietary restrictions, allergies and other special needs. Many of our clients are diabetic and we are careful to provide appropriate nutrition for them. Our volunteers prepare, package, and deliver the meals to our clients – we literally could not offer this program without them! These volunteers not only deliver the meals, they also offer words of encouragement and support to individuals who are often lonely.

One of the great things about a large organization like EECM is that we can offer “cross-over” services. For example, during the summer, volunteer groups that serve at EECM do yard work at the homes of MOW clients and during the holidays, those clients participate in our gift-giving program.

EECM’s Meals on Wheels program is one of the many ways that we are making a tangible impact in our community. During the last fiscal year, this program provided 25,239 meals to an average of 85 clients each day.