Food Security United States Project #23078

Elm Court Center Meals

by Meals on Wheels People

Project Report | Apr 14, 2021
Elm Court Meets Social, Nutritional Needs

By Julie Piper Finley | Director of Public Relations

We are now into the second year of the global pandemic and Meals on Wheels People continues to meet the social and nutritional needs of older adults served by the Elm Court Center in downtown Portland. Between Jan. 1 and Apr. 12, 2021, we delivered 40,627 nutritious meals to homebound elderly in downtown Portland. This represents a 49% increase in meals served over the same time period one year ago. For the majority of those we serve, the meals we bring them are their only food of the day. Since March of last year, we have been delivering seven meals weekly rather than a single meal five days a week. Additionally, we have also been delivering supplemental food boxes each week. The contents of the boxes vary, but include nutrient-rich items such as cottage cheese, hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter and sweet potatoes along with loaves of bread and quarts of milk. For seniors who have been avoiding going out in public due to the pandemic, these food boxes have often meant the difference between going hungry or not.

We are continuing the Friendly Chat program where volunteers call homebound seniors for a friendly conversation once or twice a week. We have also established a Peer-to-Peer Connect program where six to eight participants are connected weekly through a conference call to have conversations around a central theme. These have included "Where Were You When?", "Current Events", "Gratitude" and a book club.

Now that vaccines are generally available and the majority of those we serve have access to them, we are looking ahead to the fall and the possiblity of once again reopening the Elm Court Center to in-person dining. A lot will depend on the general environment of Multnomah County and if restaurants and other public places are open. We are hopeful that we may be able to intially open one day per week for diners and then make a decision on how often to be open.

Thanks to the generosity of GlobalGiving donors, we are able to provide meals to every older adult who requests them without instituting a waiting list. We are grateful for your support of senior nutrition in our community.

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Dec 29, 2020
Elm Court Provides Meals During Pandemimc

By Julie Piper Finley | Director of Public Relations

As the pandemic continues, Meals on Wheels People is providing more meals than ever before to older adults in the Portland metro area. Between Sept. 1 and Dec. 27, 2020 we delivered 54,687 nutritious meals to homebound seniors in the vicinity of our Elm Court Center in downtown Portland. This represents a 60% increase over the number of meals served and delivered during this same time period one year ago. As the pandemic continues to limit the ability for people to gather in groups, Meals on Wheels People is still able to deploy volunteers to deliver meals to those who need them most. We anticipate we will continue our current level of delivery -- nearly 8,000 meals daily throughout the metro area -- until mid-2021 when most people have had access to the new vaccine. Until that time, older adults will continue to social isolate and will need meals.

Our Friendly Chat program is ongoing. Those seniors who are interested can sign up for a volunteer to call and talk with them once or twice a week. On Thanksgiving Day, when we delivered nearly 2500 meals, every meal recipient received a Friendly Chat call from a volunteer. This program has received a lot of attention and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has asked to be included in the call rotation in January.

We have also continued to deliver supplemental food. For many we serve, the one meal we bring them is often their only food of the day. And, with limited access to grocery shopping for many, we have been sending out staples such as potatoes, fruit, bread and nutrient-rich foods they can use to put together their own meals. The added food boxes have been very well received and appreciated by our clients.

In the New Year, we will begin to investigate opportunities for setting up a second production kitchen on the East side of the Willamette River. This will not only provide additional prep and storage space, but will help to cut down on the number of trips our delivery trucks will need to make daily.

As always, we are extremely grateful to the GlobalGiving donors for helping us reach our vision that no senior will go hungry or experience social isolation. Thank you for supporting senior nutrition in our community.

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Sep 3, 2020
Meals on Wheels Continues to Meet Growing Need

By Julie Piper Finley | Director of Public Relations

We are continuing to provide meals to homebound elderly in the downtown Portland area during the pandemic. Between May 1 and Aug. 31, 2020, we delivered 62,629 meals to more than 500 older adults. This represents a 75% increase over the number of meals served and delivered during the same time period just one year ago. The increase is due to two factors: 1)more seniors than ever before have registered to receive home-delivered meals since mid-March and 2)we are delivering more food per person. Traditoinally, we bring a fresh meal to each person Monday through Friday. Because we want to limit exposure for both our volunteers and our seniors, we have reduced delivery days from five days each week to just one day. Rather than providing a total of five weekly meals, we are now providing each person with seven meals. This ensures that each person has at least one balanced meal per day.

The pandemic shows little sign that it is slowing down or abating. We plan to continue to keep our neighborhood dining centers closed and to mainatin our current delivery method through the remainder of 2020 and probably at least the first six months of 2021. We have managed to increase the daily production in our Central Ktichen from 5,000 meals daily to 8,000 meals daily and have been fortunate to secure enough funding to make this possible. Our biggest issue at this point is storage -- both of raw product and of packaged meals. We have made arrangements with a local dairy to store some items and have borrowed refrigerated containers that are now pakred at our Central Ktichen for additional storage. This situation is not ideal and we have secured a warehouse in Clark County for storage on that side of the Columbia and are seeking additional storage space on the east side of the Willamette.

To help elimiate the social isoaltion that comes with limited contact with volunteers, we have launched a friendly chat program. More than 800 volunteers have registered to call homebound seniors once or twice a week just for a conversation. This program has proven to be very popular and more than 1,000 seniors throughout the region have signed up for this program.

As the pandemic continues, Meals on Wheels People will continue to provide fresh, healthy food to older adults who are choosing to shelter in place, allowing them to remain independent.

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