In a 1994 letter to The Starr Foundation, Gael Greene, New York restaurant critic and founder of Citymeals on Wheels, perfectly summed up its mission:
“Government funds that deliver hot meals on weekdays simply do not stretch to cover weekends or holidays. An elderly New Yorker might go 72 hours without food unless a caring neighbor happened to remember. Now you and I are the caring neighbor.”
What began in 1981 as an effort to provide holiday meals to her older homebound neighbors has grown into a public-private partnership that has delivered more than 70 million meals to older adults who would otherwise go hungry. Each year, almost 18,000 volunteers bring meals and connection to nearly 22,000 homebound, elderly New Yorkers. These provisions fill crucial gaps, supplementing government-funded weekday meals by providing meals on weekends and holidays, as well as shelf-stable food packages to use during emergencies and inclement weather, when regular deliveries may be delayed.
According to a recent Citymeals study, nearly 60% of older New Yorkers who receive home-delivered meals experienced food insecurity in the past year. Many cannot shop for groceries and have a limited ability to cook and prepare food. Nearly half of people using the city’s main food programs have no friends or family who can help them with at least one meal per day, and many reported feelings of loneliness and depression. Citymeals volunteers provide essential social interaction during deliveries that, based on research and Citymeals’s own experiences, allows older adults to live independently for longer.
The Starr Foundation has supported the Citymeals mission since 1991, with grants exceeding $5.4 million. Funding has been awarded for general operations to deliver more meals, development of a specialized tool so that recipients can more easily open their food boxes, and the Friendly Visiting Program, which addressed isolation by pairing volunteers with meal recipients for weekly companionship visits.
In 2020, a multiyear $1.25 million Starr grant funded the expansion of the Citymeals distribution center in the Bronx, enabling the organization to double its facility’s capacity.
Learn more about Citymeals