Caring for Our Communities in COVID-19

February 28, 2022 An estimated one in seven Canadians struggle to afford basic nutrition, according to Dietitians of Canada. This number is up from the one in eight Canadians who were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 crisis, and with costs increasing everywhere, there’s concern that the number will rise further still. Since April 2020, the Ontario Community Support Program (OCSP) has been helping organizations like Circle of Care Sinai Health and VON North Bay get food to the vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities who need it the most, through their Meals on Wheels programs. The funding, from the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility and administered by the Ontario Community Support Association, has been extended to March 2022. Organizations will need on-going funding past this date to continue to meet the needs of the many folks who benefit from this program. Ensuring that isolated seniors and people with disabilities have access to reliable, nutritious food is an important preventative measure that helps to ease the strain on the healthcare system. Terry-Lynn Gravelle, the Meals on Wheels Coordinator for VON North Bay, has seen first-hand the transformative effect that access to healthy meals has had on clients in her program, like the gentleman who was on a liquid diet when he signed up for Meals on Wheels. “Now he gets regular food to cook himself, because his health has improved,” she says. “I have another gentleman who is a diabetic and it was uncontrolled. Now his sugar is averaging eight, which is much better than [it was] in the high teens. So this funding has allowed me to assist them and improve their health, but they otherwise would not be able to afford to get fresh produce because it's too expensive.” While the cost of fresh produce continues to rise, base funding for these organizations often remains the same. “We're renegotiating with our three different food providers, and they're all looking for 10 to 20% increases depending on the vendor and their prices. So obviously, that drives our costs up and our funding is fixed,” says Josi Sarne, Director, Community Engagement & Growth at Circle of Care. “That puts us into a position of needing to find ways to get more money, either through increasing our base funding, or raising our prices to clients, which you know, we absolutely do not want to do, or cutting back in other ways. None of those are easy choices, or ones that we want to make.” 71% of respondents to a recent OCSP survey estimated that more than 25% of their clients are facing food insecurity, and for many Meals on Wheels clients on a fixed income, even a minimal charge like $6.50 a meal is out of reach, and without additional funding, either from the government or corporate and individual donors, organizations are challenged to make tight funding stretch even further. The program is already reliant on the thousands of volunteers who not only donate their time to deliver meals and produce boxes, but also use their own vehicles, often without reimbursement for gas or mileage. These volunteers, like Noah, a young adult with a disability who delivers with the help of his parents; David, whose delivery companion is his daughter’s 18-month old Bernedoodle dog; Lissie and Gail, a pair of friends who volunteer together; and one of the women who helped to start the North Bay Meals on Wheels program in the 70’s, are not only a friendly face for isolated seniors, in some cases they’re a lifeline. “It's not just the food and the nutrition that [seniors are] getting,” says Lisa Rae, Director of Volunteers, Intake and MOW Services. “It's that safety check. That's very important for a lot of our seniors. And unfortunately, our volunteers have found clients on the floor periodically, throughout the year, where EMS has had to be called, or a relative has had to be called to come and attend to them.” With Spring on the horizon and an easing of COVID-19 restrictions, life is beginning to feel a bit less precarious for many Ontarians. But the reality is, even once the pandemic ends, food insecurity will remain. “The need is out there,” Josi says, “It continues to be out there, it's not going away. And, you know, if you add on an additional pressure of costs, reducing the amount you can provide, and you've got more people, then it makes for a pretty significant challenge to continue the program the way we'd like to continue the program.” Peter, a volunteer with Circle of Care Meals on Wheels, feels fortunate to be in a position to help others. “If we have learned nothing else during this historic pandemic, it is that in order to survive, we must do so as part of a larger community,” he says. If you have been looking for ways to help your community, either by donating time or money, please consider Meals on Wheels , as the need has never been greater.

January 24, 2022 While taking preventative actions to safeguard our healthcare system may have been a new concept for the general public, brought to light by COVID-19, it has long been a driving force for Community Support Sector (CSS) organizations. Such is the case for Community Care Concepts of Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot , the only CSS provider across three townships and rural Waterloo Region. “We are the go-to organization for supporting seniors, or what we would call ‘adults with unique needs’ to live in their homes,” Executive Director Cathy Harrington explains. These supports include home care services like light housekeeping or home maintenance assistance, nutrition programs like Meals on Wheels, transportation services to help seniors and adults with disabilities attend their medical appointments, and respite and adult day programs, which afford family caregivers essential rest and support. Cathy explains that, without services like the ones they offer, vulnerable individuals would struggle, putting physical and financial pressure on other parts of the healthcare system. “They would be contacting their physician, if they had one, they'd be showing up in Emerge. Their needs would be escalating to a certain point that they would become much more in a state of crisis.” But individuals in need don’t always approach organizations like Community Care Concepts of Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot for help. Sometimes, they don’t know help is available, or worry that it will come at a cost. “Many people fear that someone will assess them, and decide that they can't stay in their own home,” Cathy says. The reality is, CSS organizations will not remove folks from their homes– in fact, their aim is to do the exact opposite. Helping people age at home – and keeping them out of hospitals and long-term care – is exactly what the community care sector excels at. With a catchment area spanning a large, rural geography, and an aging population, where “two of the three townships that we serve have a higher percentage of older adults than in the rest of the region,” connecting their services with the people who need them the most can be challenging for Community Care Concepts of Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot. To help, they’ve developed a network of community partnerships to connect with potential clients as efficiently as possible—a system that prepared them well for the past couple of years. “The pandemic really shone a spotlight on our need to work together,” Cathy says, “For us, it's trying to figure out…what other services [folks are] already engaged with, and how we can work with those other providers to complement the work that they're doing.”

December 7, 2021 - Maclean's Low-cost meal delivery services have become fundamental components of communities across the country, mostly by way of local Meals on Wheels agencies. Hundreds of thousands of adults in Canada—from seniors and their care workers to people with disabilities—count on the affordable and nutritious meals the services deliver. Many also look to the volunteers for companionship. Independently-run agencies that prepare and deliver meals exist in almost every province, running primarily on irregular donations and government funding. In Ontario, 74 of the province’s Meals on Wheels providers are members of the Ontario Community Support Association, which helps them with advocacy work and government relations. Without the association, the individual providers “wouldn’t have a voice with the provincial government”, said the association’s CEO Deborah Simon. As Meals on Wheels providers rev up for their busiest winter season to date, Nathan Sing spoke to Simon and Shannan Ketchabaw, the executive director of Meals on Wheels provider Sudbury Meals, on the staggering demand for low-barrier food delivery services and why nutritious food should be treated as preventative health care. Read the entire article written by Nathan Sing at Maclean's online.

For over 36 years, East York Meals on Wheels has been delivering affordable and nutritious meals to seniors and adults with disabilities in the Thorncliffe community of Toronto. This summer, thanks to the Ontario Community Support Program and partnerships with neighbouring community organizations, they were able to add Halal meals to their offerings in a pilot program catered to their Muslim community-members. East York Meals on Wheels is based in Thorncliffe Park, a 2.2 square kilometre neighbourhood in Toronto, with around 30,000 inhabitants housed largely between several dozen apartment buildings. Adriano Murarotto, Executive Director of East York Meals on Wheels explains, “The community here is a landing spot for a lot of newcomers, especially from the Pakistani area...and unfortunately, there's just many layers of barriers,” including limited settlement services, grocery stores, and transit options in the area. Food insecurity in the community, worsened by the pandemic, prompted another Thorncliffe community support association, The Neighbourhood Organization (TNO), to set up a food collaborative, an impromptu food bank of sorts. Invited for a tour, Adriano was faced with a long line of people stretching through the parking lot, and across the plaza. “I thought originally ‘These people are lining up for their vaccines,’” Adriano remembers. But he quickly realized, “These people aren't here for vaccinations, people are here for food.” The staff at TNO explained that, as many community members as there were in line, there were still others, mostly seniors and adults with disabilities, who weren’t physically able to get to the food collaborative or carry items home, and TNO didn’t have the infrastructure for delivery. Adriano said, “Well, this is a perfect match because we have infrastructure for delivery, via our volunteers, and we have a history of doing this and we may be in the same buildings during the day as the clients that you're serving.” The TNO and East York Meals on Wheels worked quickly to put a pilot project together, teaming up with additional community organizations like Health Access Thorncliffe Park, who helped to connect the program with community members in need, and The Bike Brigade, a group of volunteer delivery cyclists, who were instrumental in getting the meals to the clients who needed them the most. “The connections within the community have been wonderful,” Adriano says, noting that collaboration between organizations isn’t always so simple. “In this sector, we're so territorial about our catchment areas...that's sort of been the way that we’ve been funded. So it's what we know. But through this project, I've reached out to our bordering neighbors, agencies, and I told them about what we're doing. And they said, ‘Please, we welcome you to come into our catchment area...because we don't know what to do.’” It wasn’t a matter of simply adding these new clients to their existing Meals on Wheels program though. A key demographic of the community is Muslim, meaning the meals needed to be Halal -- the dietary standard prescribed in the Qur’an, which requires paying attention to ingredients and how food is prepared. Adriano and his team got to work researching local Halal meal providers, participating in cultural training and food safety training from the Halal monitoring authority, and purchasing new storage and transport equipment to properly segregate the Halal meals from other meals, in part made possible by the OCSP. “The OCSP has been key in starting this pilot up,” Adriano says, noting that the funding also helped with administrative costs to coordinate the new routes and volunteers, and with the subsidy of the meals, which was a huge relief to the folks receiving them. Many people admitted they were often skipping meals, were forced to choose between medication and food, or may have had to eat ‘haram’ (‘forbidden’ foods) simply because that’s all that was available to them. “We learned a lot about our blind spots as an agency,” Adriano says, “Because we were, for so many years, serving the same types of meals on a very limited menu, and really not catering to this community that is at our doorsteps here.” With 418 meals sent out in the first full month the program was operating (and that’s just for two days a week!) more people are already being served in their Halal program than their regular Meals on Wheels program. “I think if there's one thing that we can say, it’s that we're sad that we hadn't done this sooner, because it's a program well overdue,” Adriano says. Due to the success of the pilot, it has been extended, with the intent of making it permanent. Clients are so grateful for the program that some of them are coming on as volunteers. “It was beautiful to see,” Adriano says, “Because the need was finally being connected with the resources.” “Without the help from the OCSP, this program wouldn't have been possible,” Adriano says, “And we wouldn't have come out so wholesome from the pandemic, if it wasn't for the OCSA support, and the continuous advocacy that OCSA provides. It's a beautiful association, and we're honored to be part of it.” East York Meals on Wheels is one of 136 community support service organizations who has received OCSP enhancement funding. Since May 2020, the program has provided over 1.3 million deliveries of food, medications and essentials that have helped seniors and people with disabilities stay safe during the pandemic. The OCSP program is funded by the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility.

September 7, 2021 In any given year, numerous vulnerable seniors and adults with disabilities request help accessing food in Ontario communities. But with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for Meals on Wheels programs increased provincially by nearly 90,000 meals a month. In April 2020, shortly after the province of Ontario locked down for the first time, the Ministry of Seniors and Accessibility announced the Ontario Community Support Program (OCSP), a $16 million dollar investment over two years administered by the Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA) to help meet the surge in demand for delivered meals and essentials like medication for vulnerable individuals isolating at home. Anyone who has used Meals on Wheels knows it’s much more than a food delivery program. Largely facilitated by volunteers, an important aspect of the MOW program is the wellness check-in, and human connection it provides to seniors, persons with disabilities and other individuals in need of assistance. Meals on Wheels (Sudbury) and Senior Persons Living Connected (SPLC) are two of the community support service organizations that applied for OCSP funds early in the program. Based in very different regions of Ontario, they faced unique challenges in supporting their clients, and each planned to use their OCSP funds in a way that would make a meaningful difference in their community. Founded in 1971, Meals on Wheels (Sudbury) will celebrate its 50th anniversary this fall. Based in Sudbury, Ontario, the largest geographical municipality in Ontario and home to 330 lakes, the organization helps folks remain independent in their homes by delivering daily nutritious meals to their doorstep.

TORONTO, April 21, 2021 – Sunday, April 18, marked the start of National Volunteer Week in Canada. It’s a coast-to-coast-to-coast celebration of the commitment, dedication, generosity and selflessness of Canada’s almost 12.7 million volunteers. Today we’re releasing a Done-For-You Recruitment Campaign to help CSS organizations connect more easily, and more effectively, with the volunteers they need to keep supporting our communities. As we enter the second year of this pandemic, volunteers are more important and more needed than ever, especially in community support organizations that deliver Meals on Wheels. As a vital component of home and community services, the community support services (CSS) sector relies heavily on volunteers to deliver services to the most vulnerable people in our communities, including seniors and people with disabilities. The pandemic has put tremendous pressure on the sector, causing massive spikes in demand for services that have yet to level out. Volunteers are key to sustainability. “Before the pandemic, many volunteers in our sector were over 70 years of age,” says Deborah Simon, CEO of the Ontario Community Support Association. “Understandably, they’ve had to step back during COVID-19 and this week we want to celebrate those who managed to continue volunteering as well as those new volunteers that have stepped forward.” Early in the pandemic, some organizations lost as much as 80% of their volunteer base as seniors stayed home. The pandemic has highlighted the need for renewal and diversity amongst volunteers in organizations that provide essential community-based care such as Meals on Wheels that helps vulnerable people stay home safely. “Volunteers create positive change all across our province,” stated Hon. Raymond Cho, Minister for Seniors and Accessibility. “They are showing the true Ontario Spirit in helping to keep our communities safe and connected.” Since April 2020, his Ministry has funded $11 million into the Ontario Community Support Program (OCSP) to coordinate and subsidize deliveries of meals, medicines and other necessities to low-income seniors and people with disabilities who are isolating during the pandemic. “This National Volunteer Week, we also want to recognize the challenge that many organizations have faced in recruiting and onboarding new volunteers -- including youth, newcomers, and people in early or pre-retirement -- in the midst of all the other pressures of COVID-19,” says Simon. “Our “Done-For-You” Recruitment Campaign hopes to ease those challenges.” “ The Recruitment Campaign and the Volunteer Management Link Hub that houses it were developed by OCSA with OCSP funding. CSS organizations can visit the Link Hub for useful, relevant tips, tools, and training on recruiting, onboarding, engaging, and protecting volunteers during COVID-19. -30- About OCSA The Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA) represents close to 230 not-for-profit organizations that provide home care and community support services to over one million Ontarians. Our members help seniors and people with disabilities live independently in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. These proactive and cost-effective services improve quality of life and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations, emergency room visits and premature institutionalization. They are the key to a sustainable health care system for Ontario. For more information, visit www.ocsa.on.ca or @OCSATweets. For more information please contact: Sandra Kahale – Media Coordinator Ontario Community Support Association 647-997-1800 sandra@onwordconsulting.com

By creating the farm-to-table Community Food Box with funding from the Ontario Community Support Program, Meals on Wheels provider Community Care Durham found a way to distribute food to vulnerable members of their community, while helping to rebuild it as well. Read the entire article by clicking the download link below.

Meals on Wheels services saw a dramatic increase in customer demand this past year, with an increase in both meals delivered and in the number of clients being served. Throughout the pandemic and its many challenges, MOW Ottawa was able to remain open as an essential service and continue serving its community through nutritious meals and as a point of contact and connection, thanks in part to the Ontario Community Support Program. Read the entire article by clicking the download link below.

Ontario Community Support Association member Guelph Independent Living received relief funding allocations totaling over $25,000 which it used to provide clients with fresh food boxes and essential items, such as cleaning and hygiene supplies. While the pandemic continues to bring uncertainty to the community support services sector, relief funding programs allow agencies like Guelph Independent Living to continue supporting adults with physical disabilities and seniors in our communities. Read the entire article by clicking the download link below.