05-09-2016 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, May 9, 2016 7:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 of 28 5. WESTERN COMMUNITIES ACTION NETWORK (WeCAN) (continued) Hot meals are made fresh daily and brought directly to the clients by volunteers, which allows people to live independently in their own home and get the nutrition they need. Last year 142 meals were served to Orono residents. The newest offering by WeCAN is the mobile food shelf, which transports healthy food to people facing barriers to accessing traditional food shelves. As part of this program, WeCAN sees a lot of people with disabilities, elderly, chronic health conditions, and children are served meals after school hours or school breaks. Deliveries are made to area low-income apartment complexes as well as sent out with Meals-On- Wheels deliveries. In addition, school bags are delivered to children on school breaks and over the summer since they are missing the meals they would typically receive during the school year. Last year this program distributed over 45,000 pounds of food and 13 Orono residents utilized this service. The fourth and growing program is the employment service. Clients can meet with job counselors to assist them in resume` writing, job searches and interview skills. This provides them with the support and confidence to seek out employment, better paying or more stable job opportunities. Budget classes are also offered to provide financial education. Larson stated WeCAN offers a holistic look at programs to address the many issues associated with poverty and homelessness. It provides a vital service to the City in caring for the people who are disadvantaged. Larson stated she looks to city leadership for their support of the programs and to help keep the residents stable. Levang asked how the global market works. Larson stated the program is approximately two years old and came about because they saw that there was a lack of transportation service for people to be able to get to the food shelf. WeCAN now physically delivers the food to various places, which tends to be the clustered groups of low income families or people with disabilities. Currently WeCAN delivers twice a month to four different apartment complexes. Larson indicated they receive lots of donations from the donation garden here in Orono as well as donations of milk, eggs, margarine, and meat. Larson stated they also send bags of food along with Meals-On-Wheels drivers. Walsh asked if they served 147 families in Orono. Larson indicated it was 142 meals. Walsh asked if any of the children who received backpacks were from Orono. Larson indicated they delivered approximately 500 school bags but that they do not have it broken it down by the school. Larson noted that the majority of Orono does not fall into the Westonka School District but that she can probably obtain that information and provide it to the City. Walsh commented it is important the City supports its citizens as much as possible and that he would like to know the percentages.