Meals-4-Change will scale our community kitchen production by 50%, increasing from 2,000 to 3,000 weekly ready-to-eat meals to serve 100 additional vulnerable community members. We recently completed kitchen expansion, installing commercial-grade equipment and expanded cold storage capacity. Our infrastructure can now produce 3,000 meals weekly, but current production sits at 2,000 meals due to resource constraints, leaving 1,000 meals unproduced each week while documented community demand continues to grow.
This project bridges that gap by enabling increased production hours, expanded ingredient sourcing to supplement our Food Recovery program, and enhanced distribution capacity to rural food desert communities. We serve individuals experiencing homelessness who lack cooking facilities, seniors with mobility limitations, people with disabilities, youth in addiction recovery, and families in rural townships who must travel over 30 kilometers to access fresh food. Our model recovers surplus food from local grocery partners and engages 48 weekly volunteers, predominantly seniors, in meal preparation under our Red Seal Chef's mentorship.
Every meal costs only $1.95 to produce while providing nutritious food and meaningful volunteer engagement that combats social isolation. Meals distributed through community partner agencies embedded in the populations they serve, ensuring accessibility and reducing stigma. We currently work with 10 partner agencies and will expand to 12 through this project. This scaling initiative transforms our recent infrastructure investment into tangible impact by unlocking unused capacity to reach vulnerable individuals while building community resilience through volunteer leadership and collaborative service delivery.
One in three households in Simcoe-Muskoka experience food insecurity, significantly higher than the 24% provincial average. Orillia has the highest low-income rate in Simcoe County at 18.3%. Food insecurity among children under 18 has increased from 20.6% to 24.6% over the past three years, while our data shows that 23.5% of our food bank users come from rural areas outside Orillia, highlighting the regional scope of need. The cost of healthy food continues to rise, with fruit prices up nearly 20% and vegetables up 24% since 2015, making nutritious meals increasingly unaffordable for vulnerable families.
Our community faces a growing homelessness crisis, with individuals living in tents, vehicles, and motels without access to cooking facilities. Rural residents in surrounding townships of Severn, Ramara, and Oro-Medonte must travel over 30 kilometers to access fresh food in areas including Brechin, Coldwater, Cumberland Beach, and South Orillia, creating insurmountable barriers for seniors and people with disabilities who lack transportation.
Traditional food bank models, while essential, do not fully address the needs of people who cannot cook due to lack of facilities, mobility limitations, or chronic illness. Ready-to-eat meals provide an immediate, dignified solution while our volunteer-led model creates meaningful community engagement opportunities. As Orillia's centralized food hub, we are uniquely positioned to coordinate efforts across partner agencies, avoiding service duplication and maximizing community resources during a time of unprecedented demand and economic uncertainty.
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This program is so important in this community! The infrastructure is already in place so it can go ahead quickly.