Eastside Meals on Wheels (EMoW) is facing a funding shortfall
Over half of our clients’ meal costs are funded at least partially through the federal Older Americans Act (OAA) Nutrition Program. Over the pandemic when our client numbers swelled, Congress came through for seniors and passed an influx of emergency stimulus funds. However, that funding ended at the start of January 2022.
Congress has been slow to understand how MUCH the Meals on Wheels programs have grown.
For 2022, Congress approved only a 1.5% increase in spending through the OAA. In order to make our OAA funding stretch further, EMoW asked our clients to reduce the amount of meals they receive from seven to five per week. If that was going to create a hardship, we continued to serve the full amount. Like all nonprofits, Eastside Meals on Wheels is at the mercy of public funding, but we take pride in the fact that our bottom-line isn’t money.
Even with these changes, Eastside Meals on Wheels will run out of OAA government funding at the end of July.
EMoW will go without OAA government subsidies from August to December of 2022. You can help us cover the gap by contributing to our Meal Relief Fund.
EMoW Meal Relief Fund
In 2016, our then Executive Director Eileen Hafften solicited funding from the Northeast Lions to help us cover gaps in federal funding. In a trend that has continued, she found that fewer and fewer of our clients were able to contribute towards their meal costs.
Meals on Wheels is a public-private partnership, so the federal government provides approximately 40% of the seed funding, and we need donations from individuals and businesses to help us cover the rest.
As senior hunger has increased, our OAA funds are not going to even cover the expected percentage. Any contributions you make to this restricted fund will go directly towards making up this difference.
Donate to the Meal Relief Fund
Your generous donations can make a abig difference in the lives of seniors across Northeast, St. Anthony and the University neighborhoods.
Thank you to our sponsors:
