Dear Friends and Partners,
This is the October 25th update of
Wright County’s Care and Nutrition Partnership Support for Seniors (60+).
We are starting our 32nd 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, assisted transportation and other
logistical issues as they present.
We want to highlight
again that NourishingHOPE has extended frozen meal support just beyond
the Wright County Line to the east into Western Hennepin County. Seniors
there in Western Hennepin County can reach out to NourishingHOPE to
learn about frozen meal support in their local community. Communities in
Western Hennepin include: Corcoran, Greenfield, Hamel, Hassen, Loretto, Rogers,
Delano, Hanover, Maple Plain, Otsego, and Rockford. For more information
about Western Hennepin services, please contact nourishinghope.oflc@gmail.com or call (763) 477-6300.
One way
you can help today is to share this email with friends or family that might be
interested in assisting our seniors with their individual transportation needs.
We are looking for more volunteer drivers to help support
volunteer driver assistance for seniors needing to get to their medical
appointments.
We do reimburse mileage. Volunteers can contact us at 320-963-6500 ext.
274. Dialing zero will also get you to a staff assistant.
Wright
County COVID-19 IMPACT
As of
October 22nd we have 2,334
confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wright County. This
measurement began March 13th of this year. This week we had 191 new confirmed
cases which is down J from the recent peak last week of 228 cases. There are a
total of 13 new cases this week over 70 years of age for a pandemic total of 181.
October 22,
2020
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/52d559cfbe6e4ca39558c9b2f877e144
Weekly COVID-19 Report 10-15-2020 - Minnesota Demographics by Age
page 22
https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/covidweekly42.pdf
This
graph gives more insight into the risk to our seniors. It is so important
to keep the communication lines open and to work intentionally at protecting
this vulnerable population from the virus. Please share this
story so all our seniors know a place to go if they want to confidently check
into resources they may need – also please call the seniors in your life.
Separation and isolation can really start to get to you, even more
for many of our older neighbors that are not as mobile as they once were.
No matter how old you are, just ask yourself; are you feeling a little less
settled since this pandemic began? The calls to our seniors are essential
services.
Preparation for
the next Senior Meal Packing Event
J&B Group Senior Meal Inventory loaded
for packing
Waverly
Cafés Team recycling our J&B Group boxes
If you
have a team that might want to help us pack meals on a Wednesday or Thursday
morning please let us know.
Packing happens about every week and takes less than two hours. It can be
a lot fun. Each packing can be done with up to 4 or 5
volunteers. Call 763-658-4414 if you want to learn more about volunteering.
Shout-out
to Strategic Partners
Trailblazer and our outstanding team of local
volunteers delivered over 340 meals
per day last week. We also want to say a special thank you to Terri Harris for
her tireless work in recruiting and coordinating volunteers each day to support
Trailblazer deliveries. We hit a milestone this week. The Senior
Care and Nutrition Partnership rolled over 60,000 meals delivered since March 30th this
year.
Forgotten Harvest – Jose and Kristy Flores together make
a tremendous difference in the food security of people in need in Wright
County, much of Western Hennepin, and North Minneapolis. They are a
blessing to so many. Here is an opportunity for you to help someone who
is doing so much good for others!
Jose and Kristy Flores
Jose and the Twin Cities Rescue Team
I hope you got to see
this article about Land’s End Pasty. Land’s End, a Minneapolis
pasty shop, provided a special treat to many of our Wright County seniors by
providing 100 delicious pasties for their enjoyment. Thank you Land’s End
for this very thoughtful donation!
This week Untiedt’s
Vegetable Farm offered a record number of 590
boxes of produce including Kohlrabi, Celery, Cauliflower, Red Cabbage, #2 Green
Peppers, Zestar Apples, Brussels Sprouts, Fennel, Cucumbers, Roma Tomatoes,
Jalapenos, Butternut Squash, and Buttercup Squash.
Please let us know if
there are any food security partners that we are not reaching with fresh fruit
and vegetables from Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm. Please
forward this email to them or give them our contact information.
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)
Please forward this email to potential
partners!
Blessed,
Jay
Weatherford
WCCA
Executive Director
For more
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
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.
·
Delano Coburn’s – weekly
food rescue makes a tremendous impact on food security resources.
·
Local Farmers –
Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm and Dechene Corporation of Big Lake Minnesota –
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.
·
NourshingHOPE – senior
services applications fulfillment, frozen meal distribution, and produce
distributions.
·
Wright County Human
Services/Public Health – volunteer recruitment support, data support,
instructional materials design, and logistics support.
·
St. Cloud Refrigeration
– emergency air conditioning for the Waverly Café kitchen.
·
Electrical Workers
Union, IBEW Local 292 – brought to the partnership Olympia Tech Electric to
support new electrical service needed at Waverly Café
·
Olympia Tech Electric –
installing new electrical services at Waverly Café needed for additional
freezer capacity
·
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), HWY 55 Trailer Sales
of Buffalo, 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.
|
|
Jay Weatherford Executive Director | Wright
County Community Action p: 320-963-6500 dial 0 a: 130 W Division St | P.O. Box
787, Maple Lake, MN 55358 s: www.wccaweb.com e: jweatherford@wccaweb.com |
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