In November 2023, Meals on Wheels Yolo County celebrated the opening of its new 5,300-square-foot Winters Senior Nutrition Center which will double the nonprofit organization’s meal production capacity from 800 to 1,700 meals daily in combination with its existing Woodland-based kitchen.
So far, Joy Cohan, executive director for the nonprofit, said they are slowly working their way to reaching this goal but currently nourish roughly 1,000 Yolo County seniors daily.
“While there has been growth, it’s been slowed as we awaited final permitting to operate from the Winters facility,” Cohan explained. “All of the growth thus far has continued to depend upon the Woodland kitchen. Plumbing and electrical issues with the Winters building caused a delay of several months. However, now that meal production is underway in Winters at last, our projected scale-up can resume.”
The nonprofit is close to 40% of the way to meeting its goal of providing for at least one-third of the total need in the county by 2026.
“Per the 2020 Census and now confirmed by the recent Yolo Food Bank food insecurity survey, about 20% of all seniors in Yolo County are food insecure,” Cohan stated. “This means that there are more than 8,000 local seniors who likely would benefit from Meals on Wheels Yolo meal access.”
Additionally, the location of the nutrition center will allow the nonprofit to expand its services to the Capay Valley as early as next month. Cohan encourages seniors along Highway 16 or anyone who cares for them to contact the nonprofit at [email protected] or 530-662-7035 to learn more.
The project was made possible largely through a $100,000 planned investment from Sutter Health to help operationalize the new meal production kitchen and roughly $500,000 in state funding secured by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry.
“Sutter Health’s investment in this meal production facility has provided Meals on Wheels Yolo with the confidence that the private and corporate philanthropic community will step up to sustain the leap of faith that our organization took in utilizing one-time public funds from Yolo County, the Agency on Aging Area 4 and the State of California to lease and equip what we’re proud to call the Meals on Wheels-Sutter Health Senior Nutrition Center,” Cohan highlighted.
She said this collaboration is “just the beginning” of what she envisions to be a robust partnership to ensure senior food security in the future. Furthermore, Cohan noted that Sutter Health continues to sponsor the nonprofit’s Thanksgiving holiday meals for seniors as part of a “meaningful new tradition.”
Kelly Brenk, Sutter Health’s community health director, argued during the Nov. 2, 2023, ribbon-cutting ceremony that the launch of this nutrition center “goes beyond mere meals.”
“The space helps keep local foods fresher for longer and brings to life recipes tailored to meet the diverse dietary needs of Yolo County’s most vulnerable neighbors,” Brenk emphasized. “Good nutrition can help lead to more sustained, positive health outcomes over time.”
When speaking about the funding secured by Aguiar-Curry, Cohan noted that the nearly $500,000 has so far enabled the nonprofit to “pair the physical investments in capacity expansion with the corresponding investments in staff and volunteers, technology and other resources and infrastructure necessary” to maximize the benefits provided by the nutrition center both to the nonprofit and to Yolo county.
“These dollars continue to be expended with an eye toward how they may serve as the basis for further capacity expansion – in Winters and elsewhere in the county – as Meals on Wheels Yolo continues to pursue strategic impact goals,” Cohan stated.
Aguiar-Curry left a recorded message that was shown during the ceremony detailing how she was able to secure state funding for the nonprofit.
“Meals on Wheels Yolo County has been shouldering the heavy lifting of providing senior food security from an inadequate facility for way too long,” she argued in the recording. “When I saw firsthand in the summer of 2022 the extraordinary work this team is doing in an undersized 40-year-old kitchen, I understood then if they had more space to prepare more meals, they can serve double and possibly even triple the number of seniors.”
She secured $487,848 of what she called “transformational funding” to secure the expansion noting that California has the largest population of older adults in the entire nation.
“With the cost of living, the need for Meals on Wheels has only increased,” Aguiar-Curry stressed. “I recently had a birthday, turned 69, and as an older adult myself I’m fully aware of the unique needs of an aging population and I plan to continue to support senior rights and their care.”
Looking forward, Cohan is excited for her nonprofit to become a more integral part of the Winters community and has established ongoing Meals on Wheels Yolo operations in town.
“We look forward to expanding the scope of our programs to the greater Winters area, the return of ‘Cafe Yolo’ congregate dining to the community in the near future, partnerships with the business community, increased volunteerism and the honor of nurturing Winters residents to ‘Eat Well, Age Well’ from a robust facility in the heart of the town,” she said.
To learn more about Meals on Wheels Yolo County, visit mowyolo.org.
