Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

Report on Food Programs in FY17’s First Quarter December 8, 2016

We at Rosie’s Place are so grateful for your support of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children, through GlobalGiving,

Serving thousands of nutritious breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and offering assistance with groceries—the Food Programs at Rosie’s Place are longstanding and vital nutritional and financial supplements for our guests. In the first quarter of our fiscal year 2017, from July 1, 2016 – September 30, 2016:

• 5,334 weekday breakfasts were served.
• 2,335 weekend brunches were served.
• 9,457 lunches were served.
• 8,765 dinners were served.
• This is a total of 25,891 nutritious meals served

When poor women are able to afford food—nutritional value is usually overridden by cost. Healthy choices are often more expensive. We’re proud to report that almost every single one of the meals we serve in our Dining Roomincludes: 1 serving of fruit, 2 servings of vegetables, is high in fiber and low in both sodium and fat.

From July 1, 2016 – September 30, 2016, Rosie’s Place Groceries:

• Welcomed 5,751 visits of which, 561 were new guests and 911 guests were 65 years old or older.
  
  
• All nutritional recipes and factsheets were provided in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian/Creole, and Mandarin.

• In keeping with our nutritional goals, 65% of all canned goods in stock were low in sodium.

Nutrition and Wellness At Rosie’s Place, we take care to offer our guests healthy recipes and information about nutrition and wellness. Our Dining Room frequently has bulletin boards with colorful nutritional information and the nurses of our Wellness Center offer workshops on healthy eating and general wellness topics throughout the year. Further, healthy recipes are distributed along with food in our Groceries Program.

Our Self-Advocacy program works with Cooking Matters, to offer monthly trips to a local grocery store for guests interested in learning more about how to budget for and prepare healthy meals on a tight budget. Please see the flyer for these trips below.

Community Garden Our Self-Advocacy program spearheads an on-site community garden at Rosie’s Place. Planted and maintained by a group of guests, the harvest is shared with other guests through the Dining Room and the pantry.The harvest is shared with other guests through the Dining Room and the Pantry.

Farm Initiative Through our Farm Initiative, Rosie’s Place partners with local farms to help place fresh fruits and vegetables onto the plates served in the Dining Room—and onto the shelves of our choice Food Pantry. This produce is all too often a luxury for our guests and the only fresh fruit or vegetables they will have. This year we have more partners than ever before with our Farm Initiative. They include: Gaining Ground, Volante Farm, Land’s Sake Farm, Brookwood Farm, Hutchins Farm, Belmont Day School, The Food Project, Dewey Square Farmers’ Market, First Root Farm, Farmer Dave’s, Jamaica Plain Farmers’ Market, The Trustees of Reservations and City Natives. Devoted volunteers and new partnerships continue to make this program thrive. This year, we anticipate receiving more than $30,000 worth of donated fresh produce.

Catering ProgramAnother cost-saving and community building effort underway at Rosie’s Place is our Catering Program. Our Volunteer Services department recruits and oversees groups of volunteers who cater a lunch or dinner in our Dining Room. Groups can cater a meal by making a $350 donation to underwrite the cost of the meal and then prepare the meal with our help in our kitchen—and serve it restaurant-style to our guests. As the impressive numbers on page one attest, the majority of our lunches and dinners were catered in the past year. This is innovative program saves Rosie’s Place a significant of money and staff time. Moreover, it allows people to come in and be a part of the Rosie’s Place community for a lunch or dinner shift and often, for years to come. We continually receive wonderful feedback about this volunteer opportunity which builds teamwork and community while serving others. In FY16, we raised $166,285 through our Catering Program.

• How to Eat Healthy on a Budget Flyer (PDF)