The group that runs Greater Bangor’s meal delivery program for older residents is still facing a six-figure funding gap despite months of fundraising — and the waitlist for the service has only grown.
The Brewer-based Eastern Area Agency on Aging’s Meals on Wheels program is chipping away at a $100,000 funding gap, according to Christopher Hill, a spokesperson for the agency.
The gap became a persistent challenge for the group when pandemic-era federal funding expired, demand for the service grew and food prices climbed. The combination forced the agency to begin a waitlist for meals, which has fluctuated between 150 to 190 people, Hill said.
The program delivers meals to more than 500 older adults across Penobscot, Hancock, Piscataquis and Washington counties, who are unable to leave their homes and cannot cook for themselves. However, 194 people sit on the waitlist for meals, up from 120 in April.
Aside from providing consistent, nutritious meals, volunteers who deliver the meals provide a social outlet for many homebound older adults. Drivers also look out for recipients’ health, and can report any issues they spot with their wellbeing or living environment, according to Meals on Wheels America.
Funding woes aren’t foreign to the agency, as it recently ended its Doorstep Dining program on July 31. The program delivered meals to people who weren’t technically homebound, so they didn’t qualify for Meals on Wheels.
Though helpful, the offering was losing money and the agency determined other local organizations offered identical services more efficiently, Hill said.
Roughly 11 percent of Maine households, or more than 153,000 people, grapple with food insecurity in a year, according to the state’s plan to end food insecurity by 2030.
While the current deficit is smaller than the $126,000 budget shortfall the group’s Meals on Wheels program faced a few months ago, Hill said $100,000 is “still a big number we’re trying to chip away at.”
The agency raised just shy of $5,000 for the program in a Kindness Day fundraiser on Thursday — about enough to pay for meals for two people for one year.
Unlike Doorstep Dining, Hill said Meals on Wheels likely won’t ever be at risk of shutting down despite persistent funding shortfalls, in part because reliable funding from the state and federal government covers 66 percent of the program. Instead, the group will scale down how many people receive meals.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point where we’ll have to shut the program down,” Hill said. “We just have to operate within the fiscal constraints that we have.”
