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Applications are rolling in for the 2023 Washington State Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program. Please call or stop by our office if you’d like to sign up for the $80 benefit. Applications are processed on a first come, first served basis.

Due to the new structure of the program (moving from vouchers to benefit cards with electronic upload) we have experienced delays in our ability to process the applications as quickly as we have in previous years. For this, we apologize. We know how vital these funds are and how many people look forward to them. Looking forward, the average turnaround time will be about 15 days from receipt of application to mailing out the activated benefit card.

For anyone learning about the program for the first time, the Farmers Market Program provides $80 in benefits for low-income seniors to use at approved Farmers Markets. To qualify for participation, seniors must be age 60 or older, meet the income requirements, and be residents of Benton or Franklin Counties. Participants are required to complete a new application each year.

Applications are available. If you’d like one and haven’t yet received one, please call our office at 509-735-1911. We will happily mail an application to you. You can also pick applications up from our office. Home delivery clients can call their individual Site Managers to request to have one delivered by the volunteer drivers.

Seniors who are unable to shop for themselves can appoint a trusted friend or family member to act as a proxy to shop on their behalf. The proxy form is on the back side of the application.

Qualified seniors should legibly complete ALL parts of the  application and mail it or drop it off at our office as soon as possible after receiving the application. Benefit cards are awarded on a first-come/first-served basis. Seniors who qualify and fully complete the application will receive their card shortly after it has been processed. Applications can be mailed to the following address for processing:

We were blown away when we attended the check presentation at McCurley Subaru in Pasco to wrap up the 2022 Subaru Share the Love Event. In conjunction with Subaru of America, McCurley Subaru presented us with a  donation of $42,040 to our program. This is our tenth year as the Hometown Charity for the McCurley Subaru Share the Love Event, and we are forever grateful for the support we receive from our local Subaru dealer. The support continues beyond the dealership; you may recall, members of the McCurley Subaru Sales Team also joined our volunteers to deliver meals to our clients. The team at McCurley Subaru is a great group of folks and we appreciate getting to partner with them for this event and throughout the year.

Thank you, McCurley Subaru!

We, the staff of Meals on Wheels, lve the most awesome volunteers in the universe! Please enjoy our spoken word tribute to all the Meals on Wheels volunteers who brighten the lives of local seniors!

Happy New Year! Wishing all of you a very happy and healthy 2022! As I’m writing this newsletter, it is cold, cold, cold!
But the good news is that we’re increasing our home delivered service to 4 days a week, tentatively effective January
10th, contingent on the enough volunteers. The new year is off to a good start at least in that regard.

We’ve just completed our Holiday Gift Program for the year. I think the Holiday Gift Program is incredibly special, and
I’d like to think that it truly represents what we try to achieve at Meals on Wheels and the ideals we hold. We want our
seniors and our community to know that we care about them and are willing to work hard to serve them in the best way we can. This giant project also highlights the teamwork it takes to provide customized gifts to over 300 clients, exactly as it takes teamwork to provide meals to seniors throughout Benton & Franklin Counties, with no waiting list!

There are so many people who worked to make the Holiday Gift Program a success again, and every one of them
played a critical role in this giant project
– Mary & Joan Kessner & their team who organize and administer this program,
– The many folks who contribute gifts, cash, & gift cards for our seniors,
– Our volunteers who load up their car with meals AND extras AND gifts for our clients,
– Our staff who juggle their many duties to field phone calls and get the right gifts to the right locations at the right time.

We are grateful to each person who helped with this project, and we hope that the gifts helped make the holidays special for every recipient! We’ve heard from many of our seniors who received gifts, and we thank them for taking the time to call or write to express their appreciation.

As we head into another year of COVID-19 restrictions, I want to say a special thank you to all the volunteers and staff
who continue to serve during this exhausting time in history. They persevere in order to serve their community, and it is absolutely my privilege to work alongside these amazing paid and volunteer staff. They are exactly the sort of people I aspire to be in 2022!

Another blur of  a year has passed! At Meals on Wheels, our work life seems to be a  constant frenzy of  projects, activities, and  change.  There are never enough hours to complete every project we envision, to consider every new idea, or to fully  express our gratitude for our supporters.

Particularly during the holidays, we hear from individuals and groups who wish to support us in some way. Even when  the offers are ones we cannot accept, we nonetheless appreciate that our community continues to think of our program and our seniors. January’s newsletter will include a list of all the folks who supported our mission in 2021. We know we can’t accomplish our work without the support of this generous community.

Our work is also  enhanced by  the dedicated folks at Southeast Washington Aging and Long Term Care, the folks who provide guidance to ensure that we comply with regulations and use State funding in a manner that best serves our seniors.  We work hand-in-hand  in mission to prolong the independent living of our clients.

The SE WA ALTC staff works diligently to help us access available funds to improve our program.  They were recently able to redesignate some funds to allow us to purchase two vital pieces of equipment that broke nearly simultaneously: our blast chiller and our tilt skillet. Combined cost & installation of this equipment is nearly $100,000! Without the efforts of ALTC, we would have had very difficult decisions to make regarding the quality and age of replacement equipment. Through their assistance, we are awaiting installation of new, high-quality equipment that will serve this community for many years.

No end-of-year message would be complete without a thank-you to the entire Senior Life Resources team! In addition to the Meals on Wheels staff who dedicate themselves to the service of seniors, we have a great team of folks who make the magic happen behind the scenes. We are grateful for the folks who support us in Finance, Payroll, and Human Resources. We are also thankful to work with our sister program, Home Care Services, who provide amazing personal care for many seniors and disabled folks throughout southeast Washington.

As we look forward to the beginning of a new year, I’d also like to thank our clients for the notes and phone calls of encouragement. Our staff and volunteers feel privileged to serve, and hearing from our clients is a special added bonus.  Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all a most happy and healthy 2022!

In this month when we make a point to be thankful, I’d like to share a couple incidents that occurred in October, both of which make me so thankful for my position with Meals on Wheels, working for and with so many amazing staff and  volunteers and clients!

—We have a wonderful volunteer who helps us in a million ways: she works in the admin office, delivers meals, helps assemble the bags of meals for delivery, and volunteers in whatever capacity is needed. In addition, she’s a generous donor and wonderful advocate for our program. She’s just finishing treatment for a serious-but-manageable health crisis in her own life.

   Although many folks might be focused on their own issues at such a time, she took the time to send ME a note of encouragement, a gesture that meant so much! Her words truly boosted me at a time when I felt pretty overwhelmed and maybe even a little discouraged. Our volunteers are simply the best!

—Our staff and seniors are also pretty amazing! A few of our staff members were out sick in October, leaving us short-handed on multiple fronts. Everyone on our staff willingly, enthusiastically, and without complaint juggled their jobs and their schedules to cover different positions and duties to ensure that meals were available for our seniors without interruption.

   During this period when we were short-staffed, we unfortunately had no one available to answer the phone most  afternoons. Callers had to leave a voicemail for us to return. Every caller was incredibly gracious and understanding of our situation, which certainly made our work much easier and more enjoyable.

On behalf of Meals on Wheels, I want to thank all our staff, volunteers, and clients for the contributions they have made and continue to make to our program and our community. I’d also like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that you’ll enjoy our November 23rd Thanksgiving meal!

Fall has officially arrived! For Meals on Wheels staff, fall brings means wrapping up projects, preparation for upcoming holiday meals, and emergency planning for likely wintery weather issues.

Each year we re-evaluate our snow days protocols in an attempt to ensure that our processes best serve our   senior clients while still providing safety for our dedicated volunteers and staff. In addition, we review and re-train staff to make sure everyone understands their roles as we get ready for that first snowfall.

One of the measures we take on behalf of our homebound clients is the preparation of emergency boxes of food to be used if volunteers are unable to deliver our normal meals. In late October or early November, volunteer drivers will deliver boxes of these emergency meals to all our home delivery clients. Items in the boxes are non-perishable items such as soup, granola bars, and fruit cups. The boxes can just be stored in the cupboard and do not require refrigeration.

Emergency boxes have been very helpful to clients not just when there’s been snow. We’ve been unable to deliver for many oddball reasons over the years. Delivery has been impeded in the past by parking lot paving, auto wrecks, and flooded streets. We’ve even encountered a few police standoffs that have locked down entire neighborhoods.

Our local Emergency Response teams encourage all of us to be prepared with supplies like bottled water, canned foods, blankets, and flashlights. And of course, we should all have an emergency plan in place so that we’re well-prepared for any crisis.

Kristi’s Update 

Happy New Year! I love the start of a new year. It always seems like an exciting  and hope-filled start of something unknown, with endless possibilities. This year at Meals on Wheels, we’ll be looking ahead to our future while taking some time to honor our past. 2019 marks our 45th anniversary serving the seniors in Benton and Franklin Counties. Our agency began in 1974 as the Bread and Butter program, and at that time we had funding for just 12 clients. Times have definitely changed, as we’ll serve about 208,000 meals to 2,300+ clients in 2018, over 12% more than in 2017! With this growth comes the need for added funding to pay for food and supplies, staff, insurance, etc. We rely on community support from both individuals and groups to help us meet this growing need. Throughout this newsletter, you’ll read about different people and groups who help in different ways. We are beyond grateful for all the support that allows us to continue with our mission to help people remain independent and living at home. As we move forward into the new year, please know that everyone here at Meals on Wheels is committed to helping seniors in our community enjoy a happy, healthy, and safe 2019!

Kristi Thien

Nutrition Services Director

Kristi’s Update

We seem to be at that season of the year when time moves at hyper-speed, even when we’re personally plodding along at quicksand pace. The next holiday seems to arrive before I’ve fully cleaned up from the previous one!

This year during the month of November, I used our Mid-Columbia Meals on Wheels Facebook page to take time to reflect on things for which our agency is grateful. It didn’t take long to realized that the 30 days of November were not nearly enough to thank all the people, private companies, foundations, and service organizations who contribute their time, treasure, & talent to Meals on Wheels. We wouldn’t exist without them.

It seems that nearly every month, our newsletter reports about the incredible volunteers at Meals on Wheels, but so much of our success starts with them. Although we have a small paid staff who are in place to kind of keep things moving, our 400+ volunteers are really the heart and soul of who we are and what we accomplish. Our volunteers are the faces our clients see, and we couldn’t be more proud to be represented by them!

As we continue in this holiday season, I hope you’ll take a minute to thank the volunteers who deliver your food or check you in at a dining center, who set the tables and clean up the dishes, who make your sandwich or handle your paperwork. Each and every volunteer is a special and valuable part of our Meals on Wheels team. They are dedicated and dependable, caring and kind. And even during this hectic time of the year, we know we can count on their service.

Happy Holidays to you all!

Kristi Thien

Nutrition Services Director