Dear Friends and Partners,
This is the December 6th update of Wright
County’s Care and Nutrition Partnership Support for Seniors (60+). We are
starting our 38th 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.
In addition to our
work in Wright County, NourishingHOPE is extending 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.
Total
Unduplicated Senior Nutrition Support applications since late March by service
market
Wright
County COVID-19 IMPACT
As of
December 3rd we have 8,470 confirmed cases of
COVID-19 in Wright County. This measurement began March 13th
of this year. The chart below demonstrates the trend of cases since
mid-March. In the last two weeks during the Thanksgiving Holidays we’ve
had another surge of 2,651 new confirmed cases. We are up over 45% in the last two weeks
averaging more than 1,300 new cases per week. LLL The lasts seven
weeks we have seen gains of 191, 397, 626, 1083, 1379, and now 2,651 over two weeks respectively
– for our senior’s sake, we want to appeal to you to do what you can to slow
this trend down.
Senior’s
take note. On Sunday, November 29th, the single day high
peaked again at 302 new cases. The previous single day high was 273 cases on November 28th.
December 3, 2020 November 19, 2020 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/52d559cfbe6e4ca39558c9b2f877e144
There have been a total of 234 new cases in the last two weeks of the holidays for seniors over 70 years of age in Wright County after the previous week’s gain of 109 for a pandemic total of 673. Again, this represents over a 50% increase in new cases for seniors over 70 years of age in just the last two holiday weeks. LLL
Impact to our oldest residents in Minnesota
Don’t
quit working to protect our seniors. Because of the
sheer number of cases in the County, the number of deaths are rising too.
We have had 18 new laboratory confirmed deaths in the last two weeks now at 48 during the pandemic up
from 30 just two weeks ago. Our seniors are no doubt the most
vulnerable per capita – your actions can make a difference. While we need
to protect this population, please realize separation and social distancing
also has its negative impact on this vulnerable group. Please share this
story so all our seniors and their family and friends know a place to go if
they want to confidently check into resources they may need – also please
call the seniors next door or in your town to let them know you care.
Shout-out
to Strategic Partners
Waverly Café is making hay—actually, delicious and
nutritious frozen meals. In six days of production this week, the Café
produced 3,201 meals averaging 534
per day. Waverly Café alone has produce 46,378 meals since
production kicked off on May 20th. Thank you so much for your
dedication to our seniors. We could not do this without your leadership,
generosity, and commitment to the Partnership.
Don’t Forget, on
December 9th NourishingHOPE is going to support a Frozen Meal
food drop in the areas that NourishingHOPE partners serve.
In addition to the wonderful work they are doing in partnership with Second
Harvest, they will drop another 4,500 prepared frozen meals this coming week out to
local residents. Please share this
information with those you know that need this food. We
would appreciate any feedback as to the success of this method of frozen meal
delivery.
Freezer trailer made
ready for NourishingHOPE frozen meal distribution preparations
In addition, on
December 14th, another 3,920 frozen meals will be delivered to North Minneapolis
for distribution there by Forgotten Harvest and Twin Cities Rescue.
Walgreens generous gift of plastic bags are helping far and wide to support packing and distribution of prepared frozen meals.
Walgreens to date has supported the partnership with 10’s of thousands of plastic delivery bags
J&B Group plays a critical role in our prepared meal distribution process. With the flexibility provided through the use of their warehouse freezer space, we have been able to weather the storms that come with COVID-19 delays in local production, packing, and distribution channel issues. This freezer space makes it possible to not only effectively rotate frozen meal inventory, but support fluctuations that occur in daily meal production and the ever changing variability in frozen meal weekly demand identified through our call center. J&B Group, you just don’t know how important your role has been to the success of feeding so many high risk seniors in Wright County and western Hennepin.
Loading frozen meals at J&B Group, Thursday morning, to be packed and put into community freezers for local delivery
Thursday WCCA Volunteers packed 2,100 frozen meals ready for local distribution by Trailblazer and the Care and Nutrition Partnership volunteers: Alleluia Church in St. Michael, and Our Father’s Lutheran in Rockford. This week our Partnership’s volunteers delivered an average of 533 meals per day.
WCCA volunteers
If you have a team that might want to help us pack meals on a Thursday morning please let us know. Packing usually happens at least once per week and takes less than two hours. It can be a lot of fun. Each packing can be done with up to 4 or 5 volunteers. Call 763-658-4414 if you want to learn more about this volunteering opportunity.
This week’s Untiedt’s Distribution Plan
During the Holidays Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm offered 445 boxes, and Joel delivered 310 boxes of produce including Butternut and Buttercup Squash, Red Potatoes, 🍎Zestar Apples, 🍎Fireside Apples, 🍎Keepsake Apples, 🍎Snowsweet Apples, and 🍎Kindercrisps Apples.
Farmer Jerry’s smile is contagious – I know this produce is making a lot of our local residents smile.
Even though the
smiles themselves are hidden by masks, the joy still shines through in their
eyes.
Twin Cities Rescue Volunteers preparing to take produce to North Minneapolis
This season,
Untiedt’s saved back produce for you (what is currently available is mostly
squash, potatoes, and apples). This week Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm
offered 300 boxes of produce
including Butternut and Acorn Squash, New Potatoes, and 🍎Kindercrisps Apples.
We currently are
still delivering and are stretching this produce as far as it will go. 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!
Appreciative,
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 Coborn’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 and
produce.
·
Local Food Shelves –
produce distribution, 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 senior meal delivery.
·
Delano Senior Center –
senior services application fulfillment, frozen meal distribution, produce
distribution, as well as Meals-on-Wheels referral partner.
·
NourshingHOPE – senior
services applications fulfillment, frozen meal distribution, and produce
distribution.
·
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,
Grace Place, North Ridge Fellowship Small Group and friends, Montrose United
Methodist Church have provided 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.
·
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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