Meals on Wheels of Lancaster held a ribbon-cutting at its Columbia Avenue headquarters Thursday afternoon to celebrate the arrival of a new delivery van.
The vehicle, a Chevrolet City Express, will be used to transport meals made in Meals on Wheels’ kitchen to pickup points in New Holland, Christiana and Paradise, where volunteers collect them for distribution to the nonprofits’ clients. It has been fitted with heated and refrigerated compartments to maintain food at the correct temperature.
Meals on Wheels serves roughly 450 people whose average age is 78. Monday through Friday, it prepares them a set of two meals: A cold brown-bag lunch and a hot supper tray.
Each day, roughly 150 meal sets must be taken from Columbia Avenue to the transfer points. The previous van had limited capacity and temperature maintenance capability; its replacement remedies those deficiencies.
“Now we can fit as many meals in the new van as we want and maintain the quality of the food when it arrives at our clients,” Meals on Wheels Executive Direcor Feleen Nancarvis said.
Lancaster Sunrise Rotary Club donated the bulk of the funding needed to cover the van’s $70,000 cost. The money was raised during the club’s 2022 Fall Fest event.
“We’re delighted to see the money put to such good use,” club President Pat Savage said. “Meals on Wheels of Lancaster does such good work and helps so many people, some in remote rural locations, who otherwise wouldn’t get a decent daily meal.”
