Meals on Wheels of Hamilton County Inc

MOWHC focuses on one service, providing nutritious meals to our most vulnerable. The overarching goal is to provide physician approved nutritious hot meals to a minimum of 385 elderly and/or disabled individuals in the Hamilton County Community. One of the objectives of this goal is to provide a minimum of 140 low-income, food insecure individuals with meals that meet their specific dietary needs. This will decrease the number of individuals suffering from food insecurity, loneliness and malnutrition while improving their overall health, ensuring that they are receiving the nutrients needed to sustain them and allow them to continue living independently for as long as possible. 

 Meals are delivered by one of our 425 compassionate, trained volunteers who provide socialization and conduct a welfare check to observe any unusual symptoms of signs of distress that may require medical attention and/or notification of a family member or caregiver. These visits and brief conversations help to impact on the social isolation and loneliness that many of our clients’ experience. Additionally, volunteers often identify other special needs that clients may have which are referred to other partner social service agencies within the area. Meals are prepared each day by our two partners, St. Vincent Carmel, and Riverview Hospital, and delivered on nineteen routes to an average of 175 clients weekly.  Frozen meals are provided by Trio Community Meals of Muncie and delivered to the MOWHC office on Friday mornings and distributed on eight routes to an average of 65 clients weekly.

 In 2023, MOWHC provided an average of 5,723 meals monthly to 365 seniors/disabled individuals in Hamilton County who were unable to prepare their meals due to a physical and/or mental challenge.   Of those, 138 were assisted through the SAM (Sponsor-A-Meal) Program, a 24% increase over the previous year.  MOWHC has found that over the last 12 months, the number of meals needed by our clients has risen by 20% over 2022 and 2023 Year to Date data indicates that MOWHC is on track to again surpass the previous year.  

MOWHC clients repeatedly report that the meals are nutritious and believe that this service does positively affect their overall health.  The volunteers continue to be a bright spot in their day and clients report enjoying a few minutes of conversation and the knowledge that someone is “stopping by” to check on their well-being.