Dear Friends and Partners,
This is the July 19th update of
Wright County’s Care and Nutrition Partnership Support for Seniors (60+).
We are starting our 18th 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, chores, and other logistical issues as they present.
As
of July 16nd we have 576 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wright County. While new
confirmed cases reported are continuing at an elevated pace, the exciting news
is that it appears our 60+ are holding under 20% of those case reported.
Historically this is a slight improvement.
As of July 16th Wright County Cases by Age
Cases
under age 50 are seeing greatest increase. It is certainly natural
for people to want to spend time together. Children have been isolated
from their friends. Extended families miss getting to see each
other. I know grandparents are missing their grandchildren. With
these dynamics, we have witnessed children passing the virus to each other and
then to their parents. With this awareness, we need to get creative,
designing strategies for being together where the virus does not progress to
our seniors and their peers, where the impact can really take a toll.
Below is a comparison from the last two weeks in Wright County
reflecting the fact that folks are getting out and becoming more active.
The fact that more cases are coming is inevitable. Let’s work to figure
out ways, when we are together, to make safety a priority keeping our high risk population
well in our sights.
Week of 7-9-2020
Week
of 7-16-20
Wright County Minnesota Coronavirus Confirmed Case
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/52d559cfbe6e4ca39558c9b2f877e144
Don’t
forget to check in with your aging neighbors while many of our seniors are
making an
extra effort to stay home - they need to hear from you!
Shout-out to Strategic Partners and our Waverly Café and WCCA
Employees
J&B
Group’s boxes
mentioned last week are making a big difference. J&B storage boxes
have now been integrated into our production process and oh what a
difference. We are handling individual frozen senior meals less times, we
are moving meals much more safely and effectively, we are struggling with much
fewer sealing issues from the weight of the meals, and our inventory process
used daily to support freezer storage issues and packing has improved
tremendously. Thanks again J&B Group for sharing your resources and ingenuity.
Before
After
Catholic
Charities (partially
funded by Central MN Council on Aging) is adding 1,875 meals per month to this
Partnership’s capacity to provide frozen meals to our seniors. Thank you
for this support!
Catholic
Charities Maple Lake Kitchen
Joel
Klaverkamp
While there may be trouble for doing this, this guy is making a huge
difference.
Joel Klaverkamp
Everything
from helping identify opportunities and problem solving, to just true grit when
it comes to the big pay loads, Joel Klaverkamp is making a difference.
Thanks Joel for showing up every day and keeping the train on the tracks.
This week’s Untiedt’s Pay Load
Untiedt’s
Vegetable Farms –
Cucumbers and Green and Yellow Zucchini made a big splash!
Big Lake Food Shelf
Our Father’s Lutheran
Buffalo Food Shelf
Annandale Food Shelf
Monticello
Help
Center
Love Inc. Heartland
Please let us
know if there are other food security partners that we are not reaching with
these vegetables. Please forward this email
to them.
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:
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
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 Community Action:
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
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! (see current partner
list below)
Appreciative,
Jay
Weatherford
WCCA
Executive Director
For more information for Wright County senior
support services:
or
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
New
Partner and First Time Reader Overview
Farmers: food shelfs and senior programs can use
your support. 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.
Partner support
·
Second Harvest – free
and reduced cost bulk raw food products for frozen meal production.
·
Local Farmers –
Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm – contributing produce for senior meal support and
local food security needs.
·
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.
·
Catholic Charities
partially funded by Central MN Council on Aging – frozen meals contribution and
Meals-on-Wheels referral partner.
·
Cargill – breakfast
meals.
·
J&B Group – bulk
warehouse freezer storage including bulk prepared meal storage and bulk raw
food storage; not to mention helping us resolve logistical issues, as well as
supplying a really great box with the outcome of providing so many solutions to
challenges we have faced in our production process.
·
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.
·
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).
·
Trailblazer – daily
volunteer based County-wide local meal delivery.
·
Delano Senior Center –
senior services application fulfillment and frozen meal distribution, as well
as Meals-on-Wheels referral partner.
·
Public Health –
volunteer recruitment, data support, instructional materials design, and
logistics support.
·
St. Cloud Refrigeration
– emergency air conditioning for the Waverly Café kitchen.
·
Local Lions Clubs –
local community freezer development and contributions to the cost of frozen
meals (Waverly, Montrose, Howard Lake, Maple Lake, Loretto, and Monticello).
·
Local Municipalities –
local freezer storage funding support (City of Waverly, City of Montrose, City
of Howard Lake).
·
Health Care Partners –
Allina Health (financial support)
·
Other Local Corporations
– Citizen State Bank of Waverly (freezer funding support) and Walgreens
(shopping bags).
·
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 and food storage - access and delivery.
·
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.
·
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.
·
Wholesale purchase of
recyclable meal trays.
·
Oliver Equipment Lease
for the required equipment to seal the senior meal trays.
·
AMI Group and IDA Foods
– access to airline meal vendors adding senior meal production capacity and
contingency support. This opportunity to purchase over stock of
first-class airline meals due to drop in air travel and our partners sharing
their relationships.
·
Tireless WCCA Staff
support from multiple programs working to braid any allowable resource to make
a difference for our seniors.
·
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).
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, buying power, 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.
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