6-22-2020 Care and Nutrition Update From Executive Director Jay Weatherdford

Dear Friends and Partners,

This is the June 21st update of Wright County’s Care and Nutrition Partnership Support for Seniors (60+).  We are starting our 14th 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 needs like housekeeping, chore, and other logistical issues as they present.

We still have new care and nutrition applications coming in.  This week we received 23 new applications.  Here’s the county-wide care and nutrition application count since March 23rd.

As of June 18th we have 391 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wright County with no change in the number hospitalized, currently at 42.  So far, 6,009 residents have already been tested in Wright County.  J  Here is an interesting chart that reflects the residence type for confirmed cases.

COVID-19 Surveillance Report – Wright County

Surrounded 

 Looks like we might be surrounded.  Keep up the good work.  Things to consider as we move forward – our rural areas may be vulnerable - see article below by David J. Peters.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90518680/rural-america-was-always-more-vulnerable-to-covid-19-than-cities-and-now-its-starting-to-show

Interestingly, Minnesota has three cities in the top 25 rural hotspot listing.

Community Partners

For some of our new readers, I want to quickly describe for you the many Community Organizations and Volunteers (partners) and their generous contributions to support the care, safety, access to resources, and nutrition of our most high risk senior population:

  1. Second Harvest – free and reduced cost bulk raw food products for frozen meal production.
  2. Local Farmers – Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm – contributing produce for senior meal support and local food security needs.
  3. Waverly Café - ingenuity and giving spirit including their PPP loan directed at paying their staff to produce senior meals, catering expertise, and use of their commercial kitchen.
  4. Catholic Charities partially funded by Central MN Council on Aging – frozen meals contribution and Meals-on-Wheels referral partner.
  5. Cargill – breakfast meals shared.
  6. J&B Group – bulk warehouse freezer storage including bulk prepared meal storage and bulk raw food storage.
  7. Buffalo Crossings LLC, owner of Oriental Buffet in Buffalo – commercial walk-in freezer, commercial walk-in cooler, and commercial kitchen to pack and store senior meals.
  8. Local Food Shelves - local frozen meal and bulk food storage, as well as senior services registration (Annandale Food Shelf, Buffalo Food Shelf, Monticello Help Center, and Waverly Food Shelf).
  9. Trailblazer – daily volunteer based County-wide local meal delivery.
  10. Delano Senior Center – senior services application fulfillment and frozen meal distribution, as well as Meals-on-Wheels referral partner.
  11. Wright County Public Health – volunteer recruitment, data support, instructional materials design, and logistics support.
  12. St. Cloud Refrigeration – emergency air conditioning for the Waverly Café kitchen.
  13. Local Lions Clubs – local community freezer development and contributions to the cost of frozen meals (Waverly, Montrose, Howard Lake, Maple Lake, Loretto, and Monticello).
  14. Local Municipalities – local freezer storage funding support (City of Waverly, City of Montrose, City of Howard Lake).
  15. Other Local Corporations – Citizen State Bank of Waverly (freezer funding support) and Walgreens (shopping bags).
  16. Local Faith-based organizations – many very giving churches for many years have been active in financial support for food security across Wright County (too many to mention them all – but you know who you are) . – in addition, Love INC, St Mary’s Catholic Church, Alleluia Lutheran, Our Father’s Lutheran, St. John’s Lutheran, North Ridge Fellowship Small Group and friends, Montrose United Methodist Church have provide support for senior call center activity, B.R.E.A.D program outreach, volunteer administrative services, food security, food preparation, and meal storage access and delivery.
  17. Initiative Foundations, Delano Loretto Area United Way, Wright County Area United Way, Mardag Foundation, and St Paul and Minnesota Foundations including funding for COVID-19 direct response, Catchafire membership, and B.R.E.A.D. program funding.
  18. State Live Well at Home Funding and Federal Title III funding support administered by the Minnesota Board on Aging and Central Minnesota Council on Aging.
  19. Whole sale purchase of recyclable meal trays.
  20. Oliver Equipment Lease for the required equipment to seal the senior meal trays.
  21. AMI Group and IDA Food – access to airline meal vendors adding senior meal production capacity and contingency support.  This opportunity to purchase over stock of first-class airline meals at cost is due to drop in air travel and our partners sharing their relationships.
  22. Tireless WCCA Staff support from multiple programs working to braid any allowable resource to make a difference for our seniors.
  23. Countless community volunteers - everything from administrative services support, logistics and storage coordination, bulk food and materials transport, senior transportation, local meal delivery, meal packing, senior call center activity, PPE production and product support, volunteer coordination, food rescue, and so many more details where you fill the gap  (you too, know who you are – we are so grateful for your courage and willingness to step forward to meet needs).

Wright County and friends are in this together!

Call to Action

There is still much more opportunity for local corporate and civic partners to get involved.  It’s simple solutions like packing meals in the Walgreens shopping bags or storing bulk meals or protein on the warehouse freezer floor at J&B Group that have made all the difference.  Given the chance there are many incredible businesses that have unique resources, relationships, and experience.   We really hope to find more corporate partners willing to leverage their earned knowledge and distinctive talents to improve this support for our seniors during the pandemic.   Leveraging what they do best including their marketing, buying power, and connections brings together powerful partners.  When we put our heads together, we dig up unique ways like those mentioned briefly above.  These often come from you readers.  So please share this email with your friend, neighbor, or corporate partner so that this story can be told, and those big thinkers out there have the opportunity to step forward and do what they do best. 

Its leaders like Waverly Café, J&B Group, Cargill, St. Cloud Refrigeration, Buffalo Crossing, and Untiedt Vegetable Farm that are showing us ways for other corporate partners to leverage their buying power, innovation, and economy of scale that will most likely take this delivery system to the next level.  We need you thinkers to help refine our process as a community, interested in protecting our most vulnerable population by leveraging their lessons learned; those lessons that have brought your businesses to the success they are today.  Share this message with your friends: during the same years that many of your companies were established and being built to thrive, the people we are trying to protect were your customers.  This might be a great opportunity to now give back to the ones who supported you and help them thrive. 

We need to refine solutions in local communities for freezer storage,  access to bulk buying, shared and efficient transportation opportunities, HR teams organizing volunteers to support local distribution in their community, corporate giving through community investment and matching.  We need volunteered ingenuity from our bankers and other corporate partners that  can bring their experience to this effort to shore up and produce a stronger, even more sustainable model than we have today.  It is partners with their buying power, innovation, and economy of scale that are now needed to continue to refine our process.  There is still local ingenuity to leverage in this crisis seeking local solutions that will only enhance, extend, and sustain the investment of the federal and state agencies.

Funding and Sustainabiliy

Coming soon you will hear even more about a partnership with Delano Loretto Area United Way to help sustain access to frozen meals going forward on the HWY 12 Corridor. 

This partnership recognizes the need for local donations to sustain our systems longer while we work through this ever changing predicament for our highest risk senior population. 

One of the weaknesses witnessed in our systems currently is the expectations put on all seniors that they “should donate” if they receive meals.  While this is absolutely no problem for some, for those who can’t donate, their pride may discourage them from participating even if they greatly need the nutrition support.  Our partnership is now using an alternative approach.  Currently, we are offering Heat and Eat Instructions with all meals distributed that include an opportunity to “pay it forward”.  When meals produced by Waverly Café are distributed on HWY 12, seniors get “Heat and Eat Instructions” in every meal distribution that include the following statement, and it seems to be working without interfering with the pride and tradition of our seniors.

STATEMENT:

While we can, these meals are offered at no cost to you.  If at some point, you are looking to pay it forward, please consider contributing to the cost of meals for yourself and maybe a friend.  We currently estimate our leveraged meal cost at $4 each. Whatever the case, your meals are covered no matter your ability to donate. 

                How to Donated:

 

Online contributions:       http://www.delanolorettouw.org  (click on “write a note”, write “COVID-19 Food”)

 

Mail Check(s):                   P.O. Box 578, Delano, MN 55328                     

Pay to:  Delano Loretto Area United Way

Memo:  COVID-19 Food

 [if you want to specify the town you want your donation  applied to, include it in the note or memo]

*Thank you for the generosity of the Delano Loretto Area United Way made possible through individual donors in your communities. Together we are stronger. LIVE UNITED.

Chef Fletcher

This week Chef Fletcher had to return to his home kitchen in Texas, but before he left he really studied the process and finalized preparations using Great Grandmother Donna’s Zucchini Bread recipe.

 

Chef Fletcher making final arrangements

 

Great Grandmother Donna’s Zucchini Bread Recipe    

This week’s Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm zucchini was put to good use.  Seniors will enjoy the zucchini as a delicious side to one of the entrees produce by Waverly Café.  In addition, a group of ladies from North Ridge Fellowship Church, led by volunteer Tina Portz, have baked an initial 250 - 1 lb. zucchini bread loaves as a special treat to include in the Senior Frozen Meal deliveries.  Tina’s leadership and organizational savvy led this team to mass production of zucchini bread in several of our local volunteers’ kitchens.  Production kits were made from donated materials and funding, and our local neighbors went to work.




Shredded Untiedt zucchini


      Special kits made ready for zucchini bread production (designed and assembled by Tina Portz) 

          

Nancy (left) and Susie (right) two of our special zucchini bread bakers hard a work in their own kitchens

Holly and Mary (60 years past her 39th birthday) produced 68 loaves in two days for the most baked record


Mary (Holly’s mom) shredded more than half the zucchini in their kitchen, and Steve got cleanup duty!


Fresh North Ridge Fellowship Ladies Zucchini Bread   

Farmers: food shelves and senior programs can use your support.  If other farms want to participate, we welcome your partnership.  Please share this email with your Wright County farmer friends potentially able to contribute, or other Food Security Partners that could use this produce to support their efforts.  For large donations, WCCA will use its resources to make distributions happen.  Again, going forward we hope to expand this list of local food security recipients that could use fresh vegetables when they become available. If you are serving local individuals at no cost and would like to be included in this potential fresh vegetable distribution opportunity please email me a cell phone number to text.  When an opportunity arises, a rapid response will be needed.  Based on a first come first serve distribution and availability, Wright County Community Action will do our best to share these resources as they come in and deliver them to partner locations.

Donations

Unmistakably, we need local contributions from seniors and others.  Some of our seniors cannot truly afford to contribute.  Some are high risk and low-income.  Some are average income with very high risk and high medical costs. Although some seniors income looks adequate on paper, high medical cost often absorb much of their income.  Also some reside in areas with a much higher cost of living yet Title III does not recognize that inequity. 

If you or a potential partner would like to help expand this resource to our seniors expressly on Highway 12, please consider donating to the “COVID-19 Food” 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 http://www.delanolorettouw.org/ and click “Donate” -- donations via credit card or PayPal (click on “write a note”, write “COVID-19 Food”)

If you want to target expansion of frozen meal delivery in other parts of Wright County including the Highway 55 corridor and I-94 corridor, please consider donating to the “COVID-19 Food” fund at Wright County Comm”unity Action:

 

  1. Write a check to:  Wright County Community Action

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

Mail to:          P.O. Box 787

                        Maple Lake, MN  55358

  1. Or visit the Wright County Community Action Agency Website (dedicate to:  “COVID-19 Food”)  https://www.wccaweb.com


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

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