Years ago, it partnered with a church in Seminole Heights and provided meals to 11 people per day. Now, the Meals on Wheels of Tampa delivers about 1,000 meals a day and serves homebound, disabled and elderly community members.
For Steve King, executive director of Meals on Wheels of Tampa, it’s an honor. “They’re the folks who, a few decades ago, were us and who built this community–now it’s our blessing to care for them.”
All meals are cooked fresh in the organization’s private kitchen each morning. There are various menus depending on the recipient’s specific needs, such as diabetic-friendly, heart-healthy and renal-friendly.
Once the meals are prepared, they are packaged and delivered to 12 drop-off sites throughout Hillsborough County. Most of these sites are churches, King explains. Meals on Wheels volunteers then pick up the meals from the drop-off sites and deliver them to recipients.
One meal is delivered to each recipient every day around noon, Monday through Friday. On Fridays, two flash-frozen meals, for the weekend, are also delivered.
There are 112 routes with 8 to 14 people being served on each route. Volunteers use their own cars and gas to drop off the meals.
Beyond the food, the delivery itself is a huge part of the Meals on Wheels experience. King says that 60% of recipients live alone and rarely see other people. “That daily visit from our volunteer is so essential to their social wellbeing,” he says.
One of Meals on Wheels’ main purposes is to help the people it serves stay self-sufficient. “The whole goal of our mission is to enable folks who are homebound, disabled and elderly to remain independent and living right where we all want to be, in the comfort and security of our own homes, our own space, for as long as we can,” King says.
King has served with Meals on Wheels of Tampa for nearly twenty years and he has seen firsthand how the organization changes lives. For him, it’s a cause everyone can get behind. “I love that our mission relates to everyone. Everybody can understand our mission because everyone has moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, who are aging.”
Meals on Wheels of Tampa is one of many specialized meal delivery organizations in the U.S. According to King, there are 5,000 similar organizations around the country. What makes the Tampa organization unique is that it is completely privately funded.
Most of the national Meals on Wheels programs are partially funded by the government and must follow specific guidelines (such as only being able to serve individuals who are sixty-two and older).
“We’ve made the decision that anybody who is homebound or disabled, regardless of the age, we will serve them,” King explains.
Another advantage to being privately funded is that Meals on Wheels of Tampa does not have a waitlist and can start serving a new recipient “very quickly;” usually, King says, within 48 hours of approval. Most government-funded programs have a six-week registration process and long waitlists.
Meals on Wheels of Tampa is expanding their services to additional areas including Homosassa and Apollo Beach, this fall, Kings says.
“We know there’s a lot of work ahead, we need to expand to other areas that don’t receive our services currently and we will. We’ll get there.”
While the organization does not accept food donations due to the dietary needs of its recipients, it welcomes financial donations and offers a variety of volunteering opportunities for community members to get involved.
More at MOWTampa.org.