MONROE - Recipients of home-delivered meals in Green County will have one less worry if roads are closed during winter storms this year.
Ginger Croft, Joe Faust, Terry Hensel, Laurie LaBarre and Andrea Nolen, all county residents participating in the Green County Leaders 2010-11 program, worked with Dave Fischer of Green County Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) to develop the "We Care - Snow Day Emergency Meal Kit."
The kits contain enough emergency food and water for three meals, including single servings of water, juice, stew, soup, crackers, sausages and fruit cups and jelly.
Green County has about 80 participants in its home-delivery meal program. Fischer said those people will receive a box starting this week from volunteers of the county's Senior Nutrition Program. The extra kits will be kept on hand for any new participants.
"It's the culmination of nine months of classes and preparing," said Croft. "We just got together, strangers basically, because we all had a passion for helping our elderly in the community."
Croft said the kits are designed to contain satisfying meals that have protein and are easy to prepare.
"We made sure we had a little treat in there, too," she added.
All the food and boxes to make the 100 kits were donated by Colony Brands, C. L. Swanson Corporation and Piggly Wiggly.
Fischer said providing emergency meals has been a desire of the ADRC for "quite some time."
"But it's such a huge project, we just couldn't ever get it done," he added.
Fischer said snow storms interfere with meal delivers about two times a year.
"The volunteers don't like it when they can't deliver meals, but sometimes it's just too dangerous for anybody to go out," he said.
Plans for the meal kit project are available "for any other group to pick up the project in the future," Croft said.
Ginger Croft, Joe Faust, Terry Hensel, Laurie LaBarre and Andrea Nolen, all county residents participating in the Green County Leaders 2010-11 program, worked with Dave Fischer of Green County Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) to develop the "We Care - Snow Day Emergency Meal Kit."
The kits contain enough emergency food and water for three meals, including single servings of water, juice, stew, soup, crackers, sausages and fruit cups and jelly.
Green County has about 80 participants in its home-delivery meal program. Fischer said those people will receive a box starting this week from volunteers of the county's Senior Nutrition Program. The extra kits will be kept on hand for any new participants.
"It's the culmination of nine months of classes and preparing," said Croft. "We just got together, strangers basically, because we all had a passion for helping our elderly in the community."
Croft said the kits are designed to contain satisfying meals that have protein and are easy to prepare.
"We made sure we had a little treat in there, too," she added.
All the food and boxes to make the 100 kits were donated by Colony Brands, C. L. Swanson Corporation and Piggly Wiggly.
Fischer said providing emergency meals has been a desire of the ADRC for "quite some time."
"But it's such a huge project, we just couldn't ever get it done," he added.
Fischer said snow storms interfere with meal delivers about two times a year.
"The volunteers don't like it when they can't deliver meals, but sometimes it's just too dangerous for anybody to go out," he said.
Plans for the meal kit project are available "for any other group to pick up the project in the future," Croft said.