Community Meals, Inc.
President’s Report – 2020
January 14, 2021
Little did we realize last January that 2020 would be unlike any year we had ever experienced in our lifetimes. As a result of Covid-19, Community Meals was challenged and tested like never before, and we had to quickly pivot and make major changes in an extremely short time frame to our operating procedures to protect our volunteers and clients. This included strictly limiting participation in meal preparation in the kitchen to an absolute minimum level, changing the volunteer meal pickup procedures to minimize contact, and mandatory use of masks and gloves. Worst of all, we had to eliminate direct contact between volunteers and clients, an especially difficult decision. Also, we had a number of our regular volunteers take a temporary leave for health and safety reasons. In spite of all this, we are proud to say that we were able to maintain our meal service to our clients without a single day’s interruptions, unlike other nearby Meals on Wheels operations that had to temporarily suspend or limit operations. While thankfully we did not have to halt service, we contacted all our clients to assess their situation and identified the most vulnerable clients, and conducted a food drive to ensure we had a plentiful supply of shelf stable food for any needy client in case of emergencies.
On a statistical basis, Community Meals, Inc. (CMI) had another successful year in 2020, carrying out ourmission to provide nutritious meals to individuals who live in the seven towns in Northwest Bergen we serve who are unable to shop or cook for themselves due to age or disability. Our 75+ dedicated volunteers delivered 22,080 meals to our clients in 2020, a 2% increase over 2019;This represented an average of 86 meals each day.. We served an average of 86 clients monthly during the year, down from 89 last year. As expected, Ridgewood, the largest of the seven towns in our service area accounted for the largest share of clients,27% of the total client base.. Approximately 22% of our active clients were subsidized, with most receiving a 100% subsidy. These clients continue to demonstrate very significant financial need and accounted for 29% of our total meals delivered in 2020. Our solid financial status and strong donor support and fundraising efforts allow us to continue to meet our ongoing mission and goal to never turn away a client for financial reasons.
Fundraising is always an important task for us, as we receive no government funding, and our meal operations run at a loss due to subsidized meals. In order to breakeven, and cover our meal operation losses and other operating expenses ,and leave our reserve funds in place, fundraising is vital for us. CMI’s fundraising efforts were quite successful this year, raising over $76,000, a 12% increase over 2019 in an extremely difficult economic environment, exceeding our budgeted goal of $64,500, and enabling us to end the year with an operating surplus and continue to maintain a strong financial position. We were aided by two special Covid-19 relief grants from Bristol Meyers Squibb Foundation and Greater Bergen Realtors Care foundation totaling over $14,000. This year, the bulk of our fundraising revenue, approximately 70%, came from corporate grants and non-corporate and family foundations grants. Individual donations accounted for 22% of fundraising revenue, coming from eighty-two individuals, many of whom are repeat and long-time donors. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to hold our annual “Meals That Matter” dining event, which is our single largest fundraising event.-hopefully, conditions will improve by the 2nd half of 2021 to allow us to hold this again. Finally, we were honored to be chosen for the third straight year to participate in the Unitarian Universalist Outreach Auction (run virtually!)
We continually try to publicize our services and activities via our website and our Facebook page-our Facebook followers increased 26% in 2020 vs. 2019; hopefully we can continue to increase our followers in 2021. We were also pleased to have had a front page article published in November on our Covid-19 response in the Glen Rock Gazette. Lastly, for the 1st time we published and distributed our annual newsletter in digital format via Constant Contact as well as our usual print distribution by mail.
Fulfilling our mission would not be possible without our loyal volunteers and our dedicated and hard-working staff. I want to thank our Executive Director, Penny Schildkraut, and our Associate Director, Rebecca Conboy for their incredible efforts and dedication in keeping our meal service going in extremely trying conditions. They keep our operation running smoothly, handling all concerns and issues that arise, and doing so with patience, skill and kindness. Our day chairs, Lynne VanEngel, Peggy Vandervoort, Jack Egan, and Roseline LaGuerre have done a great job in making sure there is a volunteer every day to cover each of our 9 routes-not always an easy task this year with many of our volunteers having to take a temporary leave. Last but not least, a big thanks to our 75+ volunteers who cover the “last mile” delivering the meals from the kitchen at Community Church to our clients, and can be counted on to show up in all kinds of weather and with a (socially distanced) smile for our clients. We look forward every year to thanking our members with a recognition luncheon-however, this had to be canceled this year due to the pandemic; hopefully conditions will improve enough to allow the luncheon to be held again in 2021.
Two additional expressions of thanks are in order: (a) to Community Church-we deeply appreciate the church allowing us to continue to use the kitchen as our base of operations and office in what has been an extremely disruptive and difficult year for them (b) To Valley Hospital for continuing provide meals to us during the early stages of the pandemic, when they were under incredible stress in their operations..
I want to thank Penny, Rebecca and all the members of the board for their hard work and dedication this past year and the support they have given me, and to give special thanks to those members who are leaving the board this year-Donna Nihen, Jack Egan, and Rosemarie Barone. Your time and effort was much appreciated and contributed greatly to CMI’s ongoing success. It was my pleasure to work with you as President of the organization this past year and in prior years as well.
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our five new board members, Jerry Charles, Susan McLaughlin, Carol Raftery, Michele Thurber, and Stasha Vincinanza. We are excited to have you join us in the important work we do and I’m confident you will all be great assets to CMI and find your time on the board to be rewarding. Thank you also to our existing board members who have agreed to become officers this year or are continuing to hold their office from last year.
Finally, I will be leaving the board myself due to term limits (though I will be continuing as a regular Monday volunteer). I have been honored to serve as president for the last two years , and I am excited to turn the office of president and the president’s gavel over to Mindy Frangulova, who will do a great job of leading Community Meals in 2021-our 50th Anniversary year !!
Ray Accettura, President
Little did we realize last January that 2020 would be unlike any year we had ever experienced in our lifetimes. As a result of Covid-19, Community Meals was challenged and tested like never before, and we had to quickly pivot and make major changes in an extremely short time frame to our operating procedures to protect our volunteers and clients. This included strictly limiting participation in meal preparation in the kitchen to an absolute minimum level, changing the volunteer meal pickup procedures to minimize contact, and mandatory use of masks and gloves. Worst of all, we had to eliminate direct contact between volunteers and clients, an especially difficult decision. Also, we had a number of our regular volunteers take a temporary leave for health and safety reasons. In spite of all this, we are proud to say that we were able to maintain our meal service to our clients without a single day’s interruptions, unlike other nearby Meals on Wheels operations that had to temporarily suspend or limit operations. While thankfully we did not have to halt service, we contacted all our clients to assess their situation and identified the most vulnerable clients, and conducted a food drive to ensure we had a plentiful supply of shelf stable food for any needy client in case of emergencies.
On a statistical basis, Community Meals, Inc. (CMI) had another successful year in 2020, carrying out ourmission to provide nutritious meals to individuals who live in the seven towns in Northwest Bergen we serve who are unable to shop or cook for themselves due to age or disability. Our 75+ dedicated volunteers delivered 22,080 meals to our clients in 2020, a 2% increase over 2019;This represented an average of 86 meals each day.. We served an average of 86 clients monthly during the year, down from 89 last year. As expected, Ridgewood, the largest of the seven towns in our service area accounted for the largest share of clients,27% of the total client base.. Approximately 22% of our active clients were subsidized, with most receiving a 100% subsidy. These clients continue to demonstrate very significant financial need and accounted for 29% of our total meals delivered in 2020. Our solid financial status and strong donor support and fundraising efforts allow us to continue to meet our ongoing mission and goal to never turn away a client for financial reasons.
Fundraising is always an important task for us, as we receive no government funding, and our meal operations run at a loss due to subsidized meals. In order to breakeven, and cover our meal operation losses and other operating expenses ,and leave our reserve funds in place, fundraising is vital for us. CMI’s fundraising efforts were quite successful this year, raising over $76,000, a 12% increase over 2019 in an extremely difficult economic environment, exceeding our budgeted goal of $64,500, and enabling us to end the year with an operating surplus and continue to maintain a strong financial position. We were aided by two special Covid-19 relief grants from Bristol Meyers Squibb Foundation and Greater Bergen Realtors Care foundation totaling over $14,000. This year, the bulk of our fundraising revenue, approximately 70%, came from corporate grants and non-corporate and family foundations grants. Individual donations accounted for 22% of fundraising revenue, coming from eighty-two individuals, many of whom are repeat and long-time donors. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to hold our annual “Meals That Matter” dining event, which is our single largest fundraising event.-hopefully, conditions will improve by the 2nd half of 2021 to allow us to hold this again. Finally, we were honored to be chosen for the third straight year to participate in the Unitarian Universalist Outreach Auction (run virtually!)
We continually try to publicize our services and activities via our website and our Facebook page-our Facebook followers increased 26% in 2020 vs. 2019; hopefully we can continue to increase our followers in 2021. We were also pleased to have had a front page article published in November on our Covid-19 response in the Glen Rock Gazette. Lastly, for the 1st time we published and distributed our annual newsletter in digital format via Constant Contact as well as our usual print distribution by mail.
Fulfilling our mission would not be possible without our loyal volunteers and our dedicated and hard-working staff. I want to thank our Executive Director, Penny Schildkraut, and our Associate Director, Rebecca Conboy for their incredible efforts and dedication in keeping our meal service going in extremely trying conditions. They keep our operation running smoothly, handling all concerns and issues that arise, and doing so with patience, skill and kindness. Our day chairs, Lynne VanEngel, Peggy Vandervoort, Jack Egan, and Roseline LaGuerre have done a great job in making sure there is a volunteer every day to cover each of our 9 routes-not always an easy task this year with many of our volunteers having to take a temporary leave. Last but not least, a big thanks to our 75+ volunteers who cover the “last mile” delivering the meals from the kitchen at Community Church to our clients, and can be counted on to show up in all kinds of weather and with a (socially distanced) smile for our clients. We look forward every year to thanking our members with a recognition luncheon-however, this had to be canceled this year due to the pandemic; hopefully conditions will improve enough to allow the luncheon to be held again in 2021.
Two additional expressions of thanks are in order: (a) to Community Church-we deeply appreciate the church allowing us to continue to use the kitchen as our base of operations and office in what has been an extremely disruptive and difficult year for them (b) To Valley Hospital for continuing provide meals to us during the early stages of the pandemic, when they were under incredible stress in their operations..
I want to thank Penny, Rebecca and all the members of the board for their hard work and dedication this past year and the support they have given me, and to give special thanks to those members who are leaving the board this year-Donna Nihen, Jack Egan, and Rosemarie Barone. Your time and effort was much appreciated and contributed greatly to CMI’s ongoing success. It was my pleasure to work with you as President of the organization this past year and in prior years as well.
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our five new board members, Jerry Charles, Susan McLaughlin, Carol Raftery, Michele Thurber, and Stasha Vincinanza. We are excited to have you join us in the important work we do and I’m confident you will all be great assets to CMI and find your time on the board to be rewarding. Thank you also to our existing board members who have agreed to become officers this year or are continuing to hold their office from last year.
Finally, I will be leaving the board myself due to term limits (though I will be continuing as a regular Monday volunteer). I have been honored to serve as president for the last two years , and I am excited to turn the office of president and the president’s gavel over to Mindy Frangulova, who will do a great job of leading Community Meals in 2021-our 50th Anniversary year !!
Ray Accettura, President