● Meals on wheels in Charlotte-Mecklenburg ●
Meal production at Friendship Trays
"How many meals do you deliver?" It's one of the perennial questions in the meals-on-wheels universe – along with "How do you pay for it?" and "Are you meeting the need?" This page is devoted solely to the first question.
Daily meal counts and 20-day average
In the chart above covering the period Jan. 30, 2009 through April 30, 2012, the blue line charts daily total meals. The red line represents a 20-day average of total meals per day.
The chart was built on the numbers on this page. The table lists the the daily meal total in the three general delivery systems currently in use: delivery of lunches to an individual's home; delivery of lunches in individual trays or bulk pans to adult day care and treatment centers; and delivery of lunches and some breakfasts in individual trays or bulk pans to child day care centers.
Monthly meal counts
A number of factors contribute the variation in total meals delivered per month. Among them:
– In the legacy home-delivery program, January numbers are low each year while summers tend to be highest. Overall, the program has grown little since 2009. These have been recession years, so it is impossible to judge whether the program will remain static or grow as economic conditions improve.
– Deliveries to adult day cares began before January 2009. The centers involved tend to be serving some of the same clientele that we reached at their homes in earlier years. Over the years, we have lost some contracts to lower-cost vendors. The fluctuations in Friendship Trays numbers do not necessarily mirror fluctuations in the adult day care census.
– We provide meals to a number of small child day care centers that mostly serve low-income children. Most of the food is delivered in large pans rather than individual trays. Some want one meal a day; others want two: breakfast and lunch. Monthly numbers drop during holiday breaks and during the summer months when census numbers drop or centers close.
The chart was built on the numbers on this page. The table lists the total meals served during each month in the three general delivery systems currently in use: delivery of lunches to an individual's home; delivery of lunches and some dinners in individual trays or bulk pans to adult day care and treatment centers; and delivery of lunches and some breakfasts in individual trays or bulk pans to child day care centers.
