Food bank grant helps Meals on Wheels

Oct. 17—Just as senior food programs created during the pandemic begin to shut down, officials with the Ozarks Food Harvest continue to toss a nutritional lifeline to Joplin area seniors.

"It's perfect timing," said Jennifer Shotwell, chief executive officer with the Joplin-based Area Agency on Aging Region X.

The agency received a "much-needed $5,000 credit against invoice over the coming year" toward bulk food purchases from the Springfield-based organization back in July, which distributes nearly $3 million worth of donated foods to Southwest Missouri residents over the age of 60.

"We actually started this partnership with Ozarks Food Harvest during the pandemic; I was able to access some grant funding from other local entities, like Schreiber Foods and General Mills, but it was coming to an end," Shotwell said. The tax credit from the Ozarks Food Harvest's capacity building grant "really, really helps us continue this program now that we're coming out of the pandemic."

Between July 1 through Sept. 30, she said, "we have sent 7,500 pounds, or 3.75 tons, of food ... to our home-delivered meal recipients."

Since April 2020, when all grant funding and contributions are totaled, the agency received and redistributed just under 300,000 pounds, or 150 tons, of goods, which include canned foods, milk, juices, peanut butter, tuna, rice, pasta, cereals, soups and snacks, as well as cleaning goods such as dish soap, hand sanitizer and paper towels.

"We get these deliveries very cheap. Ozarks Food Harvest is amazing," Shotwell said.

Pallets of food are delivered at each Region X senior center — Joplin, Carthage, Carl Junction, Webb City, Lamar, Neosho and Noel — where they are broken down into individual senior "boxes" and delivered to homebound seniors throughout Jasper, Newton, Barton and McDonald counties via the popular Meals on Wheels program, along with their daily meal.

"The amount varies," Shotwell said, "but our largest delivery is in Joplin and rural Joplin, just due to the sheer number of clients we have on Meals on Wheels."

In September, Area Agency on Aging officials and volunteers home-delivered 2,194 meals to seniors living in Joplin and rural areas; the monthly receipt from the last three Ozarks Food Harvest truck deliveries ranged from 1,500 pounds to 3,000 pounds.

"These homebound individuals that are receiving the meals are our most vulnerable people," Shotwell said. "Their health and their income levels are quite low, so we feel good about some of these shelf-stable items (being placed) inside their homes that don't require a whole lot of preparation to make soups or stews."

Because the agency already delivers individual meals each day to homebound seniors, it just made sense to find the funding to add groceries to the delivery, she said.

Each month, Ozarks Food Harvest distributes 73 truckloads of food to 270 area charities, feeding more than 40,000 seniors struggling with food insecurity.

"These grant funds are an investment in the future of our community's food system," said Bart Brown, Ozarks Food Harvest president and CEO. "Increasing access to food is key as our network of hunger-relief charities continue to deal with the expanding cost of food and fuel."

To date, Area Agency on Aging volunteers have delivered 150 tons of groceries because of the Ozarks Food Harvest partnership, Shotwell said.

Seniors living outside of Joplin city limits have a hard time getting to a grocery store, she said, and many can't drive at all and have no access to public transportation. "I mean, there's no Uber Eats if you live out in (rural) Sarcoxie," she said.

Seniors should never be forced to give up their independence simply due to food inaccessibility, she said.

"What we're trying to do is help people access good food because that should never be a factor to a senior (seeking) nursing home care; that should be a care issue, not a nutritional issue," Shotwell said. "Thanks to the food credit, our people know they can count on us when we visit with them (that) we are bringing with us extra food for them. It's a relief. We get another year."