Mobile Meals hopes community support will increase as federal funding is pulled back

Mobile Meals needs help. Having run out of money in March, the program has been running on fumes ever since.

Mobile Meals, a home-delivery food service for low-income, elderly and disabled individuals, costs over $1 million a year, with much of the funding coming from federal grants, program director Mari Helen Horrigan said.

“Everything has been cut. I use the word ‘annihilated’ because that’s how it feels,” she said.
“We’re out of the grant dollars we were afforded in October of last year, and it’s left us dealing with a lot of uncertainty for this very uncertain population.”

Even when the grant money was in place, Axess Family Services augmented the federal and state funds and smaller foundational donations with anywhere from $100,000 and $200,000, Horrigan said.

Axess Family Services Executive Director Mark Frisone said the program is running on 2018 funding levels, prior to the surge in inflation of the last few years when food, labor and operating costs skyrocketed, adding that he’s been supplementing Mobile Meals with agency reserves.

It’s not a long-term solution, but “we do that because we feel it is absolutely essential to feed the frail and the elderly. I don’t think anybody would want to see grandma going hungry,” he said.

Asked if AFS (formerly Family & Community Services of Portage County) will resort to scrapping the meals program, Frisone had four words: “Over my dead body.”

Mobile Meals served some 350 Portage County residents, but Horrigan said she was forced to whittle the number down to about 130 when the funding crunch came. She told The Portager she hopes she won’t have to do what she did for Summit County’s recipients: “risk-stratify” each one to determine if other community resources might be brought to bear. Sometimes there aren’t.

Even worse, 47 of Portage County’s Mobile Meals recipients fall into an unfortunate gray area.

“They’re not poor enough to be on Medicaid and they’re not financially stable enough to be able to support themselves,” Horrigan said. “It throws them into food insecurity where they’re trying to manage their chronic conditions through these small meals that we bring. If we cut them off, that’s a lifeline.”

The remainder of the recipients are funded through Medicaid, but Horrigan said it’s anyone’s guess if that will continue.

“We’re not going to know if we’re funded again or what our funding is going to be until mid-September. We’re not sure what’s coming around the corner and there’s a lot of people that are going to be without meals. It’s going to be a long summer,” she said.

Community members can help with donations, none too large or too small, Horrigan said. She also welcomes volunteer drivers who have time in the middle of the day. Most of all, she urged people to check on their neighbors.

“If you’re cooking dinner, bring your neighbor a meal. They may need it,” she said.

Frisone echoed Horrigan’s call, but added an optimistic note.

“To me, this is a matter of just letting people know the need. Our community has always responded to meet local needs, always, and I suspect this will not be different. But they have to know,” he said.

To volunteer or donate in any way, contact Horrigan at 330-800-8745.