By Liz Silva | Development Operations Manager
Report on Food Programs in FY17’s Third Quarter
June 6, 2017
We at Rosie’s Place are so appreciative of your support of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children, through GlobalGiving.
Serving thousands of nutritious breakfasts, lunches and dinners and offering assistance with groceries—the Food Programs at Rosie’s Place are longstanding and vital nutritional and financial supplements for our guests. Our Dining Room is truly the heart and hub of Rosie’s Place—providing over 100,000 healthy and hearty meals to thousands of poor and homeless women and their children every year.
In the third quarter of our fiscal year 2017, from January 1, 2017 – March 31, 2017:
Our Food Pantry called Rosie’s Place Groceries welcomed 5,786 guest visits, an increase of 225 visits from this quarter last year and 2,212 of the total visits were by guests aged 65 and older.
Nutrition and Wellness: At Rosie’s Place, we take care to offer our guests healthy recipes and information about nutrition and wellness. Our Dining Room frequently has bulletin boards with colorful nutritional information and the nurses of our Wellness Center offer workshops on healthy eating and general wellness topics throughout the year. Further, healthy recipes (in several different languages) are distributed along with food in our Groceries program.
This year, with the purchase of a mobile food preparations cart, we have also been offering cooking demonstrations of healthy recipes for guests—with staff and volunteers preparing healthy and budget-friendly meals with food available in our Pantry. These have proven very popular and we will continue to grow this program.
We have established the following goals, metrics and strategies around our efforts to promote nutrition and healthy living. Below is our progress-to-date in FY2017:
Goal: Improve the nutritional meals served based on the 2015 - 2020 Dietary Guidelines for a 2,000 calorie daily diet.
Metric: 65% of the meals will contain less than 10% of calories per day from added sugars.
Metric: 65% of the meals will contain less than 10% of calories per day from saturated fats.
Metric: 65% of the meals will contain less than 2,300 mg of sodium daily.
Metric: 100% of the meals will contain one serving of fruit.
Metric: 75% of the lunches and dinners will contain three servings of vegetables.
Metric: 75% of the meals will contain 6oz grains (3 oz whole and 3 oz refined) per day.
Metric: 75% of the meals will contain 5 ½ oz of protein per day.
Progress: In our third quarter, all of these goals were met or exceeded except for the goal of providing one serving of fruit at each meal.
Goal: Post menus and nutritional values of each meal on a wipe board in the Dining Room.
Metric: 100% of meals posted on the wipe board.
Progress: Goal met.
Goal: Provide cooking demonstrations in the morning while guests wait in the Dining Room for their visit to the Food Pantry.
Metric: 12 times per year, cooking demonstrations will happen in the Dining Room.
Progress: Goal exceeded. Cooking demonstrations are held every Wednesday in the Dining Room by two volunteers studying nutrition and dietetics.
Food Programs Volunteers: Last year alone, the time donated by volunteers and interns—over 61,000 hours—was the equivalent of 30 full-time employees. Approximately 2,500 individuals give their time to Rosie’s Place and represent a diverse cross-section of our community. While we have volunteer opportunities throughout Rosie’s Place, one of our most popular choices is for a team of volunteers to “cater” or prepare and serve a meal in our Dining Room. From January 1, 2017 through March 31, 2017, 143 meals were catered at $350 each, raising a total of $50,050 to offset Dining Room expenses. This is 79% of the meals we served.
Our Food Programs and Volunteer Services departments also collaborated to redesign a Food Delivery Program for our guests. The new program started in January 2017 with 15 guests receiving monthly food deliveries from volunteers. Deliveries are made to homebound guests served at our satellite location at the Franklin Field housing development, to women now living in nursing homes and to guests with chronic health problems.
Rosie’s Place is deeply grateful to our GlobalGiving donors for your very loyal and generous support. Your generosity truly helps make our work possible as Rosie’s Place is entirely privately funded.
We are thrilled to share that this week through June 9, 2017, an anonymous donor will match the initial donation of any new monthly gift in support of our work through GlobalGiving. We hope we can count on your continued support and we appreciate your consideration of this special offer from GlobalGiving.
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