Published in RINewsToday on November 25, 2025
Today, nearly 13 million older Americans worry about having enough to eat, and a 2020 University of Michigan poll conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that 56% feel lonely—a level so severe it has been declared a public health epidemic.
Although the historic federal shutdown has ended, reimbursement for local Meals on Wheels providers remains uncertain, warned Meals on Wheels America (MOWA) President and CEO Ellie Hollander in response to the passage of the continuing appropriation ending the federal government shutdown.
According to Hollander, these funding delays caused serious financial strain for 9 in 10 local programs, which depend heavily on federal dollars through the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program. In fiscal year 2024, for the first time in a decade, this federal program was cut. About 41% of providers rely on it for at least half of their operating budgets, she stated.
Hollander noted that prior to the 43-day shutdown, one in three Meals on Wheels programs had a waitlist, with an average wait time approaching four months—and some stretching to two years. The lingering effects of the shutdown, combined with flat federal funding and recent cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, will only deepen food insecurity among older adults and cause waitlists to grow even longer, she predicted.
Providing Nutritious Meals to Rhode Island’s Most Vulnerable
Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island (MOWRI) is one of 5,000 community-based providers (operating both home-delivered and congregate meal programs) nationwide, serving an estimated two million older adults, in total. Collectively, there are more than two million volunteers and 100,000 paid staff supporting these efforts.
MOWRI is not an affiliate of MOWA and is an independent nonprofit organization. MOWRI reports a strong fund development portfolio, in addition to federal and state grant through the Older Americans Act and administered by the R.I. Office of Healthy Aging. The organization expects to raise more than $1 million through grants, individual donations, corporate partnerships, events and campaigns this year. Each year, more than 1,500 individuals make a gift to MOWRI.
A Solid History in RI
Founded in 1969 by gerontologist Joseph Brown, MOWRI began by serving hot lunches that met one-third of an older adults’ daily dietary requirements to just 17 Providence seniors along a single delivery route. By 2024, the organization had grown significantly. That year, 472 volunteers drove a combined 398,100 miles, visiting 3,738 clients Monday through Friday across 260 service days. Volunteers delivered 421,553 meals on 90 delivery routes statewide and conducted 328,000 well-being checks and social visits.
In 2025, MOWRI is serving 77% more meals each weekday than five years ago and has expanded its reach to more at-risk populations in addition to homebound older adults, including pregnant and postpartum women and those living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses.
Responding to changes in federal funding for nutrition programs, combined with next year’s state economic outlook characterized by moderate revenue growth, MOWRI released its 15-page 2030 strategic plan, Building Resilience, Deepening Impact, last week. “Our bold new strategy will allow us to extend our reach and improve the lives of even more Rhode Islanders through expanding our role as sector leaders, ensuring sustainable organizational growth, increasing our impact, and driving quality in all that we do,” said MOWRI Board President Christina Pitney in a statement announcing the plan on Nov. 19.
5-Year Plan Expands Nutrition & Wellness for Homebound
According to MOWRI, its five-year plan “utilizes a ‘Food for Service model’ to concurrently tackle food insecurity and social isolation with the goal of reducing loss of independence among homebound and frail older adult Rhode Islanders.” MOWRI’s Home-Delivered Meal Program offers daily, fully prepared nutritious meals to homebound Rhode Islanders delivered right to their door. With the delivery of the meal, the volunteer driver performs a safety-assuring wellness check along with a social visit.
MOWRI’s Emergency Meal Program is a component of the home-delivered meal service. This program is specifically designed to provide a back-up supply of non-perishable food for clients to ensure that they have access to food if their regular daily meal delivery is interrupted by severe weather or other emergencies.
Eligibility for the traditional Home-Delivered Meal Program requires clients to be age 60 or older or qualify through a state waiver program. Participants must be homebound—unable to safely leave home without assistance—and cannot be enrolled in adult day care or a community dining program on days they receive home-delivered meals. For the Capital City Café Program, clients must be 60 years of age or older, or under 60 and living with a disability or receiving general public assistance.
MOWRI enters the 2030 planning period from a position of exceptional strength, the strategic plan notes, stating that its paid staff and volunteers have delivered more than 21 million meals to date and expanded services statewide, including Block Island. With decades of experience supporting older adults through nutrition, safety checks, social connection, and health-focused programming, the organization is now preparing for its next phase of growth. However, the plan also acknowledges rising service demands, stagnant public funding, and increasing competition, while emphasizing that MOWRI’s strong financial reserves, trusted reputation, and culture of innovation provide the foundation for deeper impact.
Stakeholder input, interviews, data analysis, and national best practices all point to the same conclusion: MOWRI must expand its role in the health, aging, and equity ecosystems while building the infrastructure necessary to sustain long-term progress. The strategic plan suggests that MOWRI’s “More Than a Meal” model evolve into a public health intervention. With changing demographics among the state’s aging and vulnerable populations, the organization seeks to further expand home- and community-based services to persons with disabilities, people under age 60, rural residents, school-aged children, perinatal clients, and those living with chronic illness.
MOWRI also seeks to enhance private-pay options designed for caregivers, individuals living alone, and those recovering from surgery or illness.
Recognizing the Importance of Partnerships
The strategic plan calls for using its existing and new partnerships with hospitals, health care systems, Medicaid providers, and insurers to allow the organization to support hospital discharge planning, chronic disease management, and post-hospitalization recovery. Meanwhile, this plan also foresees standardized health assessments and referral practices conducted during meal delivery, ensuring that staff who have direct in person interaction with clients and volunteers play a direct role in supporting participant health and safety.
The strategic plan calls for providing medically tailored meals that meet both the clinical and cultural needs of clients, elevating MOWRI’s position as a statewide demonstration site for Food-Is-Medicine initiatives.
The organization also intends to investigate nutritional counseling and other health-supportive services that improves medical outcomes and promotes aging in place. Additional priorities of this new strategic plan include the establishing well defined criteria to evaluate new programs based on its organizational mission, fiscal stability, and organizational capacity; strengthening the organization through succession planning, leadership development, expansion of volunteer base, and targeted recruitment; and adopting organization-wide data systems to improve evaluation and decision-making.
Increased use of the Mobile Meals app will streamline delivery operations along with strengthening communication, enhancing participant monitoring, and supporting healthcare collaboration. Existing and new partnerships with academic institutions expands the organization’s research efforts. A new organizational dashboard can assist MOWRI’s leadership track key indicators and allocate resources effectively.
Finally, the strategic report emphasizes the importance and value of advocacy and its visibility. As competition from for-profit and tech-enabled providers grows, the organization must elevate its position on policies and clearly communicate the unique value of personal connection, wellness checks, safety monitoring, and culturally responsive services.
Overall, MOWRI says its strategic plan positions the organization for sustained growth and expanded impact by 2030.
“Our future will not be without challenges, and we are focused on ensuring that every Rhode Islander has access to the nutrition, connection, and dignity they deserve,” says Executive Director Meghan Grady.
For more information on volunteering or making a gift to support MOWRI’s statewide impact, please visit www.rimeals.org.
Tag Archives for Meals on Wheels Rhode Island
Unique Partnership Creates Pilot Senior Fellows Program
Published in RINewsToday on December 11, 2023
Buoyed by the success of a pilot Senior Fellows Program, Leadership Rhode Island (LRI) and Age-Friendly Rhode Island (AFRI) are hoping to find the funding to offer another session in the summer of 2024.
The initial effort “to lift the voices, knowledge and vision of Rhode Islanders, age 62 and ver” prepared 25 Senior Fellows to advocate for improvements that address age-elated challenges. The initial eight-week program was tuition-free.
The first crop of Senior Fellows, residents of 13 different cities and towns in Rhode Island, ranged in age from 62 to 83. Nearly half were retired.
The idea to develop a senior advocates program came from Marianne Raimondo, a graduate of LRI’s Core Program, who made the connection between Leadership Rhode Island and James Burke Connell. Connell is the executive director of Age-Friendly Rhode Island, an initiative at Rhode Island College that represents a coalition of public and private agencies, organizations and individuals committed to healthy aging.
Empowering Seniors to Become Advocates
Connell proposed the pilot program because, he says, empowering seniors to become advocates, activists and champions of age-friendly thinking and practices “will result in a Rhode Island where older adults thrive and live their best lives.” He was inspired by similar programs in Maine and New Hampshire.
Connell pitched the idea to Michelle Carr, LRI’s executive director, who could easily see the benefits of the proposed joint venture. One such positive: Nearly a fourth of LRI’s 3000 alumni are 62 years or older, many of whom are prime candidates for the program.
More importantly, Carr adds, LRI and Age-Friendly RI are both propelled by the belief that citizens of all ages who are actively engaged in their communities can make lasting impacts.
Age-Friendly RI raised the funds for the pilot program, and relied on LRI’s “talented team” to handle recruiting, participant selection, curriculum planning, and guiding participants in the development of individual community commitments, Connell says.
Gilda Hernandez, a 65-year-old research librarian at Providence College, participated with two goals in mind. As the medical advocate for her 88-year-old parents, Hernandez wanted to become an educated caregiver, one who knows how to navigate state agencies to get appropriate services for them. She also wanted to develop advocacy skills so she can address the societal problem of ageism, especially in the education sector.
The program was “what I expected. . . and more,” says Hernandez, who gave a thumbs up to the “exceptional programming and top-notch presenters.”
Most session days were divided into two parts, with half focused on knowledge-building around relevant issues, such as housing, food insecurity, transportation needs, and health care.
The other half focused on skill-building, such as writing persuasively, public speaking and network building, to enable the Fellows to develop and eventually execute their own Civic Commitments.
Pitching Personal Civic Commitments at State House
The Fellows took turns describing their Civic Commitments during their final session, held at the State House. The presentations, which included several “poignant and pin-drop moments,” were well received by the audience, which included representatives from the state’s Office of Equity and Engagement, and from the AARP, House of Hope, Meals on Wheels Rhode Island, and the United Way.
Senior Fellow Ron Caniglia, 77, from Warwick, applauds the advocacy program for emphasizing the importance of “living in place,” rather than “aging in place.” In fact, his Civic Commitment — to urge the expansion of Medicare benefits to adequately cover hearing, vision and dental care — would enable more older adults “to live life to the fullest.”
A retired contractor, Caniglia’s arguments for the expansion of these benefits are passionate and personal. Hearing loss, if not addressed, can contribute to the breakdown of family and everyday social relationships, he says. This could lead to unhealthy isolation.
Teresa DeFlitch, LRI’s director of leadership development, says she has high hopes that Rhode Island’s first 25 Senior Fellows will have a positive impact on senior citizens throughout the Ocean State. They are expected to begin their advocacy work within six months of leaving the program.
We hope, she says, that the Fellows have expanded their knowledge, network, and confidence when it comes to making a difference.
It is also hoped, she adds, that each participant feels more connected to a supportive and joyful community, including their fellow Fellows, and the LRI and Age-Friendly networks.
“We are eager to run the program again and incorporate feedback from this year’s cohort. Working with Age-Friendly Rhode Island has been wonderful and we are learning a great deal from the cohort members about what’s affecting them as older adults in the state. It’s been an inspiring and energizing experience,” DeFlitch says.
Herb Weiss 