Food Security United States Project #22666

Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

by Rosie's Place

Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

Project Report | Aug 23, 2018
Rosie's Place Food Programs - Summer 2018 Update

By Jamie Doyle | Director of Foundation & Corporate Relations

Report on Food Programs in Fiscal Year 2018
August 2018

We at Rosie’s Place are so grateful for your support of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children, through GlobalGiving. With hundreds of healthy and hearty meals served every day, along with nutritious groceries from our Pantry—our Food Programs are vital nutritional and financial supplements for our guests. Thank you for helping us to do all that we did this past year:

From July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018:

19,160 weekday breakfasts were served.
8,382 weekend brunches were served.
35,652 lunches were served.
34,153 dinners were served.
A total of 97,347 nutritious meals were served over the year.
A remarkable 81% of these lunches and dinners were underwritten through our Catering Program, raising $195,367for our Food Programs. This was this program’s most successful year-to-date.

From July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018:

Rosie’s Place’s Pantry welcomed 22,978visits. Guests aged 65 years old and older accounted for 11,141 of these visits. In total, there was an average of 1,915 Pantry visits per month.

Below are the results of our ambitious FY2018 Goals for Rosie's Place's Food Programs:

Goal: Improve the nutritional meals served based on the 2015 – 2020 Dietary Guidelines for a 2,000 calorie daily diet. A healthy eating pattern limits saturated fats and trans fats, added sugars and sodium.
Metric: 70% of the meals will contain less than 10% of calories per day from added sugars.
Metric: 70% of the meals will contain less than 10% of calories per day from saturated fats.
Metric: 70% of the meals will contain less than 2,300 mg of sodium daily.
Metric: 95% of the meals will contain one serving of fruit.
Metric: 80% of the lunches and dinners will contain three servings of vegetables.
Metric: 75% of the meals will contain 6oz grains (3 oz whole and 3 oz refined) per day.
Metric: 75% of the meals will contain 5 ½ oz of protein per day.
Results: Goal met, with all of these metrics being met or exceeded over the course of the year.

Goal: Provide the Dining Room staff with a nutrition education class.
Metric: 100% of the Food Service Staff will take a nutrition education class.
Result: Goal met, with all staff completing a nutrition education class.

Goal: Ensure that the Food Pantry is well stocked, daily, with a variety of nutritious foods.
Metric: 70% of all canned goods will be low in sodium.
Result: Goal met.

Goal: Provide nutrition education and recipes to the guests.
Metrics:

1 new nutritional fact sheet will be posted on the bulletin board each month.

o Provided in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian/Creole, and Mandarin.

1recipe with the nutritional facts will be given out in the bags monthly.

Provided in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian/Creole, and Mandarin.

Result: Goal met, with 12 recipes distributed over the year.

Goal: Collaborate with Share Our Strength to provide Cooking Matters trainings.
Metric: There will be 12 demonstrations scheduled, one per month.
Result: 11 demonstrations, attended by an average of 10 guests each month, were held. Unfortunately, we were unable to schedule a demonstration for the month of June.

Goal: Prepare and plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard with the help of our guests.
Metric: Recruit 5 guests to work in the garden.
Result: Goal met and exceeded with our garden planted and still growing. Further, our Garden Committee has ten guest-members.

Recent Program Highlights:

Cast and crew from the musical, The Color Purple, along with Boch Center staff, catered lunch and entertained our guestswith a lively performance of the show’s popular songs,on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving—as part of the show’s efforts to support Rosie’s Place during their run in Boston.
January through March, our Pantry staff conducted a voluntary basic health information survey with guests. We collected information from 3,239 women about high blood pressure, diabetes, heart issues and other conditions—in order for us to better understand the dietary needs of our guests and provide appropriate groceries and meals.
Please find attached—our Spring newsletter focused on Food Access, highlighting our work to provide healthy meals and groceries to our guests through innovative volunteer opportunities, organizational partnerships and programmatic work.
In May, we celebrated the completion of renovations to our Food Pantry and storage area with a ribbon cutting attended by Boston Mayor, Marty Walsh. We are grateful to Joe Fallon and The Fallon Company, Turner Construction Company and many others who generously donated their services to this important project. Guests, staff and volunteers alike, are thrilled with this new space.
Through our Farm Initiative, Rosie’s Place partners with local farms to help place fresh fruits and vegetables onto the plates served in the Dining Room and onto the shelves of our choice Food Pantry. We anticipate receiving more than $30,000 worth of donated fresh produce this year alone. Please find a recent article from the Concord Journal, about Rosie’s Place’s work with Common Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord, attached.

Rosie’s Place is deeply grateful for the very generous and very impactful support of the Doe Family Foundation. Your friendship has enabled us to provide wholesome meals and groceries to thousands of woman and children who would otherwise go without. Thank you.

Attachments:

Rosie's Place Works with Local Farm (PDF)

1 Attachment

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May 30, 2018
Rosie's Place Food Programs - Spring 2018 Update

By Jamie Doyle | Director of Foundation & Corporate Relations

Ribbon Cutting Celebration for our New Food Pantry

We at Rosie’s Place greatly appreciate your generous support through GlobalGiving of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children.

Rosie’s Place’s Dining Room Program

Rosie’s Place’s Dining Roomis designed to solve short-term hunger needs by providing breakfast every weekday and lunch and dinner every day—365 days a year. This fiscal year, Rosie’s Place will serve more than 100,000 hearty and healthy—nutritionally balanced-meals—to women and their children.

During the second quarter of FY2018 from January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018:

4,662 weekday breakfasts were served.
1,970 weekend brunches were served.
8,178 lunches were served.
8,125 dinners were served.
This is a total of 22,935 nutritious meals served during the quarter.

Rosie’s Place’s Groceries

Another vital food program is Rosie’s Place Groceries, a food pantry that allows nearly 1,900 women per month to take home 20 to 40 pounds of foods that their families prefer and enjoy. Rosie’s Place’s Groceries is unique. While many other agencies hand out pre-bagged groceries, our guests shop among shelves set up like a grocery store for foods their families will prefer and enjoy. Like our Dining Room, the Food Pantry uses this culturally sensitive approach to respect the dignity and self-esteem of our guests while ensuring that our resources are used effectively.

From January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018: Rosie’s Place’s Groceries’ staff:

Welcomed 3,365 daytime and 2,128 evening guest visits for a total of 5,493 guest visits for the quarter. *This total includes 2,493 visits from guests aged 65 and older, and of this group, 778 women returned for
a second visit during the same month.

Prepared pre-made bags of groceries for 23 guests who are unable to come to Rosie’s Place to shop.
For the first time, Rosie’s Place’s Groceries staff conducted a voluntary basic health information survey. We collected information on guests’ high blood pressure, diabetes, heart issues, etc.—in order to help us better understand the dietary needs of our guests and provide appropriate food items.
We recently celebrated the completion of renovations to our food pantry and storage area with a ribbon cutting. We are grateful to Joe Fallon and The Fallon Company, Turner Construction Company and many others who generously donated their services to this important project. Attached is a photo from our ribbon cutting event and features from left to right: Joe Fallon, President and CEO of The Fallon Company, Boston Mayor, Marty Walsh, Rosie's Place's President Sue Marsh and Peter Davoren, President and CEO of Turner Construction Company. Guests, staff and volunteers alike, are thrilled with this new space.

The Food Pantry continues to organize Cooking Matters classes for guests on a monthly basis. These classes provide information on finding the healthiest choices available while shopping on a budget. On average, 14 guests too part in each class this quarter.

Rosie’s Place occupies a unique niche in Boston. For more than forty years, we have served women who no one else will. Thanks to our founding principles and our funding sources, we are free to serve any woman, any time. We are an extremely low-barrier community—we aim to make it as easy as possible for guests to use any and all of our services—in whatever combinations work for them. We don't ask our guests to provide proof of need or wait for approval before we can help them with their often urgent needs. Our help has no eligibility requirements and no expiration date. Our help is unconditional.

Thank you for supporting our Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children program. Our guests couldn’t manage without Rosie’s Place. And we couldn’t manage without you. We are so grateful for your friendship.

Links:

Our Spring 2018 Newsletter focuses on Food Access

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Mar 6, 2018
Rosie's Place Food Programs-Winter 2017 update

By Liz Silva | Development Operations Manager

The Color Purple cast preparing dinner for guests

Report on Food Programs in Fiscal Year 2018
March, 2018

We at Rosie’s Place greatly appreciate your generous support through GlobalGiving of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children.

Rosie’s Place’s Dining Room Program

During the second quarter of FY2018 from October 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017:

4,784 weekday breakfasts were served.
2,145 weekend brunches were served.
9,099 lunches were served.
8,356 dinners were served.
This is a total of 24,384 nutritious meals served during the quarter.

On the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays during this quarter, our Dining Room staff served traditional holiday foods on tables decorated with white tablecloths and beautiful seasonal flowers. In the afternoon, a DJ played a variety of different songs while the guests danced to the beat. The staff and volunteers enjoyed spending time with the guests during these festive holidays, and the guests were so grateful for the food, fun and their Rosie’s Place family. And on the day before Thanksgiving, the cast of the touring production of The Color Purple joined us to serve dinner to our guests and treated guests, staff and volunteers to a performance from the show.

Rosie’s Place’s Groceries

From October 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017, Rosie’s Place’s Groceries’ staff:

Welcomed 3,955 daytime and 2,457 evening guest visits for a total of 6,412 guest visits for the quarter, an increase of 636 visits from this quarter last fiscal year. This total includes 2,915 visits from guests aged 65 and older, and of this group, 999 women returned for a second visit during the same month.
Prepared pre-made bags of groceries for 23 guests who are unable to come to Rosie’s Place to shop.
Added a survey to collect basic health information on our guests—information on high blood pressure, diabetes, heart issues, etc.—in order to help us better understand the health needs of our guests and provide appropriate food items.
Created a brochure with food pantry information in multiple languages to answer common questions to accompany our many informational signs. These pamphlets have been distributed and shared with several local non-profits.
Organized classes with Cooking Matters to offer monthly trips to a local grocery store for guests interested in learning more about how to make healthy meals on a tight budget.

With your support, we will continue offering nourishment and nurturing to the thousands of women who count on Rosie’s Place each year. Rosie’s Place does not accept any support from the city, state, or federal governments, nor from the United Way so we depend on private donations from friends like you. Thank you for being part of our community and for supporting our Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children project on GlobalGiving. Your friendship means so much.

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