Sharing food from Rogers for those in need
06/05/17 12:39:pm
Rogers–Oconomowoc is now turning leftover food into meals for those in need.
The new food sharing program involves a few extra steps that have a big impact. Each evening extra food is packaged, labeled, and placed in a dedicated locked freezer on the dock. The Hope Center of Waukesha County picks up the food each week and uses it in the Outreach Meal Program.
John Williams, director of culinary and nutrition, Oconomowoc, shares, “This is just another great way of Rogers helping the community. We do everything we can here to make sure that we are feeding our patients and staff a nutritional meal and still maintaining a fiscally responsible department. I am glad to see that the little extra that we may have left over at the end of a meal period is being repurposed to feed people in need. As one staff member put it, ‘it makes your heart smile.’”
Rogers is one of six organizations that donate food to Hope Center, which serves more than 12,000 meals a year to almost 9,000 individuals.
Al Luzi, Hope Center director of community development, is grateful and calls the donations tremendously helpful. “The quality of the food that’s produced and served at Rogers is top notch, so we are confident that we are getting nutritious food for guests who are truly in need of support. This is a population that doesn’t have the ability to prepare and pay for those meals on their own.”
Guests include the homeless, those living in rooming houses or shelters, families trying to stretch their budget, and elderly persons on a fixed income, many of whom are physically and/or mentally impaired. Meals are served to about 100 men, women, and children on Monday, Wednesday and Friday 5:30 pm at Hope Center. More than 13,000 volunteer hours from the community and area congregations helped in serving those meals.
The program will be expanded soon to donate food from Rogers–West Allis to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission.
