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Thank you for supporting Meals on Wheels of Lancaster’s mission to provide nutritionally balanced, freshly prepared meals at a reasonable cost to anyone in our specified area who cannot reasonably prepare meals for themselves.

In addition to food delivery, we strive to increase our education and advocacy efforts to better prepare individuals for later-in-life scenarios. It is our intention to stand as a resource for senior services and support by fostering relationships with local organizations and who will, in turn, increase our sustainability and reduce our reliance on government funding. We invite you to join us in maximizing this opportunity to design and build the perfect space as we look ahead to the oncoming wave of senior and disabled neighbors’ needs.

Learn more about our sponsors and giving opportunities available to you here at Meals on Wheels of Lancaster. We encourage you to consider the impact your dollars can have on the lives homebound seniors throughout Lancaster County.

Your Impact

Neither the private pay cost of meals nor any reimbursements we receive from the Lancaster County Office of Aging totally cover the cost of our services. We also know that our aspirations to help are larger than our present impact. Our most recent survey indicates so much more we can do. We want to coordinate visitations for the 23% of people who would like evening/weekend visitations. We need (and in our new location will be able) to expand services to cover weekends for the 39% of individuals who need them. We also want to make permanent the seasonal cleaning supports that have been piloted and facilitated by recent church group volunteers.

We get to celebrate joys with our clients such Alfred, a client of 8 years, whose recent kidney transplant meant he no longer needed our special Therapeutic Renal Diet and is on his own for nutrition again. We also celebrate the changes our clients are excited about as they move into supportive living situations or retirement homes. And, of course, we celebrate the lives of our dearly departed clients. Our service impacts all walks of life because the challenges and limitations that come with aging don’t discriminate on issues of race or economics or any other category. It is a joy to be part of people’s lives from the individual receiving service or their family whose burden of care and concern is lowered because we are there daily to bring nutrition and a safety check.

Your financial support upholds all of this. Whether it’s making sure that we have the staffing levels to pilot and innovate programs like our Social Call visitation, develop and implement nutritional options like our Gluten Free diet, or helping cover unpaid costs at the time of someone’s passing. Through long-term assets like the Gail Stumpf Endowment Fund or the dollar-in/dollar-out Vicki Greiner Financial Assistance Program your support ensures a sustainable, high quality services so that when you’re ready for us we’ll be right here waiting for you.

Donor Stories

Marion Snavely

Marion Snavely volunteered with Meals on Wheels for 42 years before she passed away in 2017. Her incredible service of time, love, and various roles alone would have been enough for honor and praise but it wasn’t enough for Marion and her family. After she passed away, her estate donated $10,000 to the organization. Her obituary encouraged friends to make donations in her honor to Meals on Wheels of Lancaster. Honestly, her dedicated years and countless hours of volunteer service would have been enough but her legacy was so valued by her family that many of them took inheritance money she left them and donated significant amounts of money to the organization. Within months, her family and friends had donated cash, stock, and proceeds from stock performance to Meals on Wheels of Lancaster in her honor. We received over $20,000 in honor of Marion’s contributions to the Lancaster community through her service.

Our Business Community

We are thrilled when organizations step up their efforts to support Meals on Wheels of Lancaster. Some organizations like AON encourage their employees to donate through matching funds. Other organizations, like LIstrak, allow their employees to volunteer with us during their working hours (and pay their wage while they volunteer). Then there are organizations that do both of those and more. QVC’s Hempfield plant shows incredible support to Meals on Wheels of Lancaster by encouraging their staff to volunteer AND by making large donations directly through the company as last year’s Business Match giver for the Lancaster County Community Foundation’s Extraordinary Give event.

DavCon

Recurring donations are a great way to build your support into the budget, set it, and forget it. DavCon Relocation Services reached out to us a few years ago and said that they wanted to make us a sustainable part of their corporate giving. Every month, DavCon gives a recurring donation. It’s great for us, but it’s also been good to them. A few weeks ago we had a supporter of ours inform us they were moving and they chose DavCon because they saw on Facebook that they are a supporter of Meals on Wheels of Lancaster.

Kim

One client we have, Kim, says she doesn’t have as much money to give to the community as she would like but she chooses to give us an extra $15 a month. We are so grateful for the support that she gives. Sometimes when we see big dollars being donated we can feel small and less influential. That $15 a month donation is just as big to us. It is amazing what a whole bunch of good-hearted people can do if they all give small recurring donations. Our recurring donations bring in thousands of dollars a year when added together even if it seems small at $5, $15 or $50 dollars a month.

Lisa

Lisa is a recipient of our home delivered meal program, but she does so much more. She is also a volunteer, writing and addressing the birthday cards for clients and volunteers and writing a sweet note of encouragement and appreciation to each person. It really helps us show people that are connected to us that we care about them and want to recognize them, but it also gives her a way to say thank you to us for the services she receives. As if that isn’t enough, she has the ability to direct some money out of a family foundation and recently provided us with a $6,000 donation on top of the amount she privately pays for the service. What an inspiration and model of the kind of community members we are fortunate to have.

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