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Meals on Wheels asks Strafford County for $42,000 to support daily meal deliveries and safety checks
Summary
Meals on Wheels requested $42,000 from the Strafford County subcommittee to help subsidize roughly 40,000 meals and support wellness checks and social contact for homebound residents.
Katie Cordova Brooks, executive director of Strafford Nutrition Meals on Wheels, told the Strafford County General Government Subcommittee on Feb. 5 that the program is seeking $42,000 in county support to help sustain daily hot meal deliveries and wellness checks for homebound residents.
The program delivers hot meals five days a week around midday. Cordova Brooks said Meals on Wheels provided about 144,000 meals last year to roughly 1,400 participants and serves about 500 people each day. She told the subcommittee the county contribution would help pay for approximately 40,000 of those meals.
Cordova Brooks said Meals on Wheels provides more than nutrition: drivers perform safety and wellness checks and offer social contact for many clients who otherwise see few people during the week. She said about one-third of clients report skipping meals when deliveries stop and another third of clients say they only see the driver during the week.
Members asked about the organization’s financial reserves after seeing its consolidated balance sheet. Cordova Brooks said the organization maintains designated reserves—about $800,000 set aside by the board—to cover volatility in federal and state funding and to sustain operations if grant or federal support is interrupted. She added the organization plans investments in cybersecurity and client- and volunteer-tracking software to improve efficiency.
Subcommittee members acknowledged the program’s role in allowing older and homebound residents to remain independent and to avoid institutional care. One member suggested the organization could draw on reserves if needed; members also said steady county support was justified by the program’s safety, health and social benefits.
The organization said some federal grant streams remain volatile and officials are preparing for uncertainty in state and federal allocations next year.
No formal action on the Meals on Wheels funding request was taken during the presentation; the subcommittee conducted a roll-call vote on its full committee recommendation later in the meeting.
