VOLUNTEER RESOURCE CENTRE (SYDNEY)
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Mission Statement
The New Dawn Meals on Wheels program exists to: (1) Ensure that seniors and/or people with disabilities, and their caregivers, are well-nourished. (2) Ensure that seniors and/or people with disabilities, and their caregivers, are able to live well at home longer. (3) Ensure that meals have the greatest possible nutritional value and are diet specific. (4) Ensure that money is never a barrier to securing hot, nutritious food. (5) Ensure that seniors and/or people with disabilities, and their caregivers, are checked on regularly by a well-trained, vetted, and friendly volunteer.
About This Cause
The Meals on Wheels program in Sydney, Nova Scotia started in 1972 with a small group of church volunteers. In 1983 the program was assumed by New Dawn Enterprises (a non-profit social enterprise), and today is an integral part of a community healthcare continuum that helps keep low-income seniors and people with disabilities well-nourished and living independently for longer in their homes and communities. Today, New Dawn Meals on Wheels is a charitable, non-profit, volunteer-driven organization committed to fostering independence and quality of life. Each year, we provide 20,000 hot and nutritious meals to people in our community who are unable to prepare meals for themselves. All meals are delivered to the doorstep by a team of friendly and dedicated volunteers. In the last ten years, the program has tripled its output from 6,000 meals per year to more than 20,000 meals per year. New Dawn Meals on Wheels’ target users can be broken down into the following categories: 1. Low-income seniors and their caregivers. 2. Low-income individuals living with disabilities and their caregivers. 3. Other low-income populations (families, children, non-senior single individuals) served through our community programming (non-meal delivery) activities: free nutritional education programming, Good Food Packs, Good Food Bus, etc. Of #1 (seniors) and #2 (people living with disabilities) above: • 50% live alone • 73% are unable to cook at all due to illness, injury, lack of capacity/skill, dementia, disability, or mobility complications. • 55% have a health issue that stops them from accessing, or cooking food, including mental health diagnoses, including bipolar and schizophrenia, heart attack, seizures, IBS, arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, COPD, hypertension, diverticulitis, dementia, fibromyalgia, cancer, heart failure, liver failure, and renal dialysis. • 50% of clients earned less than $25,000 per year. 29% of clients earned between $25,000 and $35,000 per year. Remaining clients earned between $35,000 and $50,000per year. New Dawn Meals on Wheels relies on a 1:15 staff to volunteer ratio with 5 full and part-time staff and more than 75 kitchen and delivery volunteers. All of our volunteers are vetted, required to produce clear criminal recordand vulnerable sector checks, provided with a comprehensive orientationand ongoing real time support from staff when delivering, and ensure thateach client has meaningful daily social connection and well-being check-ins. The total cost per prepared and delivered meal for New Dawn Meals on Wheels is $18. This includes all food, packaging, labour, materials, and administrative/operating costs. Clients pay $7-$15 per meal, based on annual household income. This is substantially lower than the cost to purchase and deliver a similar-sized meal through online ordering and delivery services and recipes are designed by a dietician to provide optimal nutrition and taste, using local, seasonal ingredients whenever possible and a range of specific diets (renal, cardiac, diabetic, gluten-free, lactose intolerant, food allergies, etc.) can be easily accommodated. •75% of annual program costs come from meal revenues. •15% of annual program costs come from different one-time grant funding opportunities. •5% of annual program costs come from one annual ($17,500) grant. •4% of program costs come from annual private gifts/fundraising.