5-31-20 Care and Nutrition Update for Wright County Seniors

Dear Friends and Partners,

This is the May 31th update of Wright County’s Care and Nutrition Support for seniors (60+).  We are starting our 11th week of response to COVID-19.  Wright County Community Action (WCCA) has a support line for seniors; please encourage seniors to call (320) 963-6500 Ext. 274.  As a community, we want to help with our most vulnerable neighbors’ challenges, including isolation and the impact that results, assistance with grocery access through education, grocery delivery, senior mobile food shelf needs, frozen meal support, prescription access, and other needs as they present.

As of May 28th we have 280 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wright County.  To the credit of our seniors (60+) and your community engagement to support their safety, based on local data less than 20% of the cases confirmed in Wright County currently are seniors 60+. This is exciting news, as on a national basis, confirmed cases of COVID-19 run almost 31% senior 60+ as compared to the overall population.  Please keep up the good work.

*https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

 As we mentioned last week, Wright County has over 24,000+ individuals age 60+.  Of those 24,000 seniors almost 1,600 (6.5%) live in poverty.  We currently have had contact and provided care services to about 5% of our 60+ population.  At this time we have received 1,261 Care and Nutritional Support Applications.  Our soft bridge filtering system, “demand approach”, attracts our most vulnerable and highest risk seniors, as well as those who struggle with different levels of concern and fear, and it seems to be working.  Of these applications, we have targeted roughly 2.5% of the senior (60+) in the county who are currently receiving frozen meal support on a “demand approach” basis from this partnership (this does not include frozen meals delivered through the local meals on wheels program partners).

 For perspective, if all of the 1,261 individuals seeking new or additional nutrition support continued to receive frozen meals, one per day, we would be delivering about 37,830 meals per month.  For the month of May, this team has delivered a total of 9,925 meals (partially provided by Catholic Charities and funded by Title III CMCOA).  The Frozen Meal Plan has provided a bridge to education and alternative services.  Many have received other nutrition support services like grocery access education, grocery delivery, and senior (60+) mobile food shelf.  Some are graduating to the local meals on wheels program where available.   Currently we have about 100 Senior Mobile Food Shelf Clients as part of our county-wide delivery.

Care and Nutrition Support Requests

Applications

Total

Service Area

5/29/20

Delano/Montrose/Rockford

405

Waverly/Howard Lake/Maple Lake

201

Annandale/South Haven

186

Buffalo

268

Cokato

47

Monticello/Clearwater

70

St Michael/Albertville/Otsego/Hanover

84

Total

1261

 Waverly Café has produced 2,909 meals for this partnership since May 20th.   This expansion in Frozen Meal capacity is making things happen and is giving us the confidence to stay the course on this initiative.

WCCA Food Shelf – Waverly Walk-in Freezer

Also this week we packed our first meals prepared by a vendor from the airline industry (IDA Foods).  This Thursday we packed 1,090 of the airline meals with an additional bonus pack of breakfast foods on the side, compliments of Cargill.

Airline Meal and Cargill Breakfast Food Packing

Again, thank you so much this week to Cargill (breakfast products), J&B Group (Warehouse Freezer Storage), Land’s End Pasty (St. Paul Pasty Shop), and Walgreens (bags to pack in) for each of your contributions to the meals packed this week.  We could not do it without you!  We also want to say a BIG thank you to these volunteers and many of the others reaching out to help.  In addition, a special thank you to the WCCA program managers and staff that have really step up and gone above and beyond to make a difference during this crisis.

                            Airline Meals and Cargill                                                                           Airline Meals and Cargill
 

                                                                    J&B Group Freezer Warehouse Storage


Land’s End Pasties

If you have a product to help support this cause or would like to partner in some way please contact Jay Weatherford by responding to this email.

On a personal note, there is a visiting Chef in the kitchen this week and I really appreciate his support, too.

Chef Fletcher

If you’d like to help expand this resource to our seniors expressly on Highway 12, please consider donating to the COVID-19 Fund at the Delano Loretto Area United Way:

  1. Write a check to:  Delano Loretto Area United Way

In the memo line, write: “COVID-19 Food.”

Mail to:          P.O. Box 578

                        Delano, MN  55328

  1. Or visit the Delano Loretto Area United Way Website (type “COVID-19 Food”  in the box) http://www.delanolorettouw.org/ and donate via credit card or PayPal 

The entire community of Wright County is in this together!

Thankful,


Jay Weatherford

WCCA Executive Director

 

Information for Wright County senior support services:

https://www.wccaweb.com/Home/Index  (click current programs)

or

email:  agingservices@wccaweb.com

or

call:

  • (320) 963-6500 Ext 274 – Aging Program Manager - Eric Nagel
  • (320) 963-6500 Ext 241 – Dispatch
  • 1-800-333-2433 – Senior LinkAge Line
  • Delivered Frozen Meal Program(s) – WCCA at (320) 963-6500 Ext 274  or Catholic Charities Meals on Wheels program located in Maple Lake: (320) 963-5771,  Annandale:  (320) 274-3891  and Buffalo:  (763) 682-6036     

To volunteer:

Contact (320) 963-6500 Ext. 225 –– Jen Liebeck jliebeck@wccaweb.com

Or enroll on Website: https://www.wccaweb.com/Home/Volunteer

For general agency questions go to https://www.wccaweb.com/ or call  (320) 963-6500 Dial 0

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