Meals-on-wheels frozen meals.
“With the support of the Winona Community Foundation, we were able to invest resources into this program and produce 3,000 meals for seniors in the Winona community.”
– Jeff Wyant, Senior Services Director at Semcac
Semcac received a $10,000 Cycle 2 Community Grant from the Winona Community Foundation in 2021. This grant was to support the establishment of a weekly delivered frozen meals-on-wheels program to 40-50 Winona County rural seniors that were previously not able to be served.
The organization’s goals for use of this grant included:
Goal 1 – Provide meals to seniors in Winona county that were not previously able to be served.
Goal 2 – Purchase the equipment and supplies needed to produce the frozen meals.
Goal 3 – Train staff, develop recipes and procedures for the frozen meals-on-wheels program.
As a result of the grant, Semcac was able to purchase two sealing machines, meal trays, film, labels, transportation bags, and other items that were needed to get the program up and running.
Due to staffing constraints, this program did not begin until June of 2022. Once staff was hired and trained, the organization was able to produce over 1,000 meals each month. These meals were used for seniors but were also sent out to their head start site for families that were food insecure. As Semcac moves forward, they report having the systems and procedures in place to produce over 1,500 meals per month.
Through facilitating this program, Semcac reports learning about a large demand for these frozen meals beyond the senior community population. As they move forward, the organization would like to expand their focus to supplying these meals to support low-income families across Winona family.
“Without the support of the Winona Commmunity Foundation, we would have had difficulty making this investment to get the program in the position it’s in now.”
– Jeff Wyant, Senior Services Director at Semcac
Semcac will be looking for other funding and outlets for the meals such as food shelves, homeless shelters and head start locations. To learn more about Semcac, please visit www.semcac.org.
An important part of the Winona Community Foundation’s mission is realized though awarding community grants to meet the ever-changing needs of the community through a competitive process. By doing so, a variety of interests are supported with the goal of helping local charities make a difference in the Winona area. Our community grants for nonprofits are broad and inclusive to meet the current community needs in the Winona area. Make a gift in support of the Community grant program to make a difference today.