The meals on wheels people is an organization that was established in 1969, in pursuit of enriching the lives of the elderly and aiding them in having their independence by issuing nutritional meals, communal support and human relations. They benefit other nutritionally at-risk populations as well. The foundation is based at Multnomah Washington and Clark counties, where they have a kitchen that serves five thousand nutritional meals, five days each week. They depend on volunteers to serve their meals, on averagely four hundred people a day, who help in cooking and distributing the food to the senior citizens. They rely mainly on well-wishers to help them get the meals to the tables of the seniors. They also get funds either from the President's Table, tribute and memorial gifts, vehicle donations, corporate partners, gifts of stock, and also planned to give. In addition to this, they charge a fee of about eight dollars, to deliver the meals home.
The organization relates to community nutrition by providing the food necessary for the growth of the population hence maintaining cultural values and norms of checking after your neighbor and raising a healthy society. Also it teaches interpersonal skills to the volunteer, for example the moral of sharing with the less fortunate. Individual skills are developed for instance time management for the deliveries and cooking skills for the volunteers in the kitchens. The organization also develops ethos in running its day to day activities.
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Due to the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the organization has had a notable change of operations, starting from getting the volunteers to work with them because everyone wants to stay at home to avoid getting infected. Significantly, they have had to work with less staff due to the regulations, for example social distancing hence they can't have many workers hanging around.
I chose this particular program for my research because it focuses on providing food for the elderly who have no one else to depend on or work for them and provide food for them. It displays how we should care for the senior members of the society wholeheartedly without expecting pay. From the Interview, with the organization I learned that all the workers of the program are solely volunteers. Earlier I had thought they had permanent employees who could team up with the volunteers but to my dismay they solely depend on volunteers. I also learned how they pack their food, the kinds of food they prepare, and the hygiene process they have integrated into their food preparation process.
The learning of the program has been beneficial to me as I have enhanced my understanding of community nutrition by helping me learn how the whole process of feeding the whole community works, how to meet your target audience, and sourcing of resources to help in the feeding of a community. Also it helped me learn the nutritional foods that provide essential nutrients to the human body. This research changed my view on community nutrition as I had thought everyone could have their food the way they liked it and it wasn’t really necessary to provide cooked food for people as you could just donate food to them and have them cook for themselves. To this effect I learned that community nutrition needs everyone on board as there are senior citizens who have no one to look after them let alone make them a meal. Also it is important to raise funds for the feeding of the community to raise a healthy society altogether.
References
https://www.mowp.org/our-story/
AM Coulston, L Craig, AC Voss - Journal of the American Dietetic …, 1996 - Elsevier
Meals-on-wheels applicants are a population at risk for poor nutritional status
DA Lipschitz, CO Mitchell, RW Steele… - Journal of Parenteral …, 1985 - Wiley Online Library Nutritional evaluation and supplementation of elderly subjects participating in a “meals on wheels” program
