CCMI Highlights
CCMI Meals On Wheels to hold March For Meals Campaign
Our Meals On Wheels program will be participating in the national 2012 March For Meals campaign. All
month long CCMI will continue to raise awareness of senior hunger. We will update our activities on Twitter and Facebook so you can keep up with events. We hope to have lots of partnering on this effort. We need the community to come out and support our March For Meals events because our community's seniors are counting on us. We can't let them down. Volunteer as a driver, attend an event, make a donation, use social media to spread the word, all forms of collaboration make a difference.
March For Meals is a national campaign held during the month of March, initiated and sponsored by the Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA), to raise awareness of senior hunger and to encourage action on the part of local communities. We choose to promote March For Meals through public events, partnerships with local businesses, volunteer recruitment and fundraising initiatives. This year, Meals On Wheels programs across the country are also celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the inclusion of Senior Nutrition Programs in the Older Americans Act (OAA). The OAA is the primary piece of federal legislation that authorizes and supports vital nutrition services, both congregate and Meals On Wheels, to Americans age 60 and older.
The problem of senior hunger in America is getting worse. MOWAA-sponsored research has revealed that 7.5 million seniors in America face the threat of hunger. Meals On Wheels supporters should take MOWAA's Pledge online at mowwa.org/pledge – which means you refuse to tolerate senior hunger in the world's richest nation.
Watch for more upcoming news about March for Meals and call us 239-332-7687 ext. 112 to get involved!
We Are Meals On Wheels & Now Groceries on Wheels too!
"We Are Meals On Wheels" is a national effort to end senior hunger in the United States. Through this effort we are working to raise awareness of senior hunger, to build support and encourage people to get involved with our local Meals On Wheels program. Senior hunger in the United States is a solvable issue, and there are simple ways that anyone can get involved. The Meals On Wheels Association of America is the national network solely dedicated to ending senior hunger in the United States. We serve homebound seniors: a growing population who would otherwise go hungry. CCMI Meals on Wheels is one of 5,000 Meals On Wheels programs that are helping to end senior hunger by providing nutritious meals and other services for seniors in local communities.
A new outgrowth of CCMI's Meals on Wheels, Groceries on Wheels delivers groceries to approximately 30 senior clients currently in the Meals on Wheels program who cannot get to the grocery store and do not have money to pay for groceries or grocery services. As a part of a Civic Engagement class, Florida Gulf Coast University students were asked to create a community-outreach project in which they focused on the issue of hunger and worked with CCMI to establish the Groceries on Wheels program. The groceries are packaged at CCMI's Everyday Marketplace in Fort Myers then delivered to seniors in the greater Lee County area, including Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres. FGCU students organized fundraisers and food drives to underwrite to the $500 cost of the first month's deliveries.
Gulf Coast Village in Cape Coral and The Plantation community in Fort Myers both held fundraisers and food drives to help support the program kickoff.
The packaged groceries include peanut butter, oatmeal, fresh bananas and oranges, applesauce, canned chicken, fruit, vegetables and soup, tuna fish, crackers, granola bars and tea.
In order to continue this program and its efforts, CCMI is looking for groups, businesses, churches or individuals who would like to fund a month worth of groceries for 30 seniors at $500 or adopt a senior in the program for $20 a month. Call our Home Delivered Meals Team Leader, Kelly DeBoy at 239-332-7687 for more information on how to get involved!
Food is the Gateway at the Everyday Cafe
The finishing touches have been added to the physical space that was once the Fort Myers Soup Kitchen and has now been transformed into the CCMI Everyday Cafe. The new signage welcomes hungry and sometimes homeless customers to a community cafe setting that offers emergency food through choices in hot food items in a welcoming round table setting and also cold items for food to go. At the cafe, food is the gateway to other services, case management and referral for issues that address the underlying causes of hunger. On-site Case Coaches are available to connect customers to services. Life Coaching is also provided at CCMI and classes are provided at the cafe to invoke positive change such as Employment, Basic Writing, Language, Citizenship, Financial Literacy, Parenting and Healthy Living. Our approach both offers emergency assistance for basic needs and also long term solutions to hunger. Volunteers, Bob and Mary Ellen Cronin, donated and raised the new flag adorning our building grounds and Michelle Cronin Shroyer donated a remarkable piece of art that adds beauty to the customers' cafe environment.
MLK Everyday Cafe Grand Opening
On September 20, 2011 CCMI celebrated the grand opening of the Everyday Cafe located adjacent to CCMI's Everyday Marketplace at 3429 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Fort Myers. This is our second newly opened location since we began creating the sustainable customer choice model two years ago. Our cafes and markets decrease the stigma associated with standing in line for meals and groceries and reduces significant waste in the preselected menu items and grocery bag model.
Meals at our Fort Myers location are prepared by chefs and served by volunteers from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. instead of the previous hot meal from 11:30 a.m. -1 p.m. Selections include breakfast items and to go sandwiches in the morning, hot selections from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and sandwiches, salads, fruits, and afternoon snacks. "This model has successfully been used in other parts of the country and is the gateway to accessing those in need and addressing their specific issues from housing, job training, health care and other social services that will help them get back on their feet," said Owen. "Even the name has changed. We are no longer the Soup Kitchen. We are the Everyday Cafe providing a choice and a voice for the growing hungry in our area." The cafe provides on-site connections to Case Coaches, services and referrals to address the underlying causes of food insecurity and work towards long-term, positive change.
Community leaders provided support for the new project including John Sheppard, Fred Morgan, Colleen DePasquale, Cliff Smith, Judge Hugh Starnes, David Plazas conducting tableside service to the homeless and hungry. A ribbon cutting with CCMI staff, cafe donors and local officials kicked off the new project.
Once again we must thank our community partners for supporting an innovative idea and making it come to fruition. The vision and hard work put in over the past two years converting the old soup kitchen into an urban cafe by Architecture Inc. and Wright Construction were invaluable. Together we are making a difference.
"If you weren't able to arrive at lunchtime you were out of luck. Now we are able to serve more of those in need whether it's a healthy breakfast to a mother and her children in the morning or a worker who just needs to grab a sandwich and get back to work. We are still using the food we have on hand but in a more versatile way than the single-choice, take-it-or-leave-it tray model we had before." --Sarah Owen, CCMI Chief Executive Officer
