Executive Director Allison Nickerson praises efforts of non-profits and partners for their work throughout COVID-19, while warning that funding gaps jeopardize NYC’s home-delivered meals (HDM) program
Press Contacts: Allison Nickerson, Executive Director (anickerson@liveon-ny.org | 212-398-6565 x. 224) or Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy (kandrews@liveon-ny.org | 212-398-6565 x.244)
New York, NY – June 24, 2020 – Senior advocacy organization LiveOn NY has announced that it has coordinated the delivery of more than 225,000 meals to older New Yorkers to help fill the demand for food since COVID-19 began. These meals are in addition to the thousands of meals provided by the City and non-profits through the City’s nutrition programs such as the newly created GetFood effort.
Not having coordinated the delivery of meals prior to COVID-19, LiveOn NY was supported by its membership of more than 100 community-based organizations that serve seniors, who helped route and distribute the meals to older adults most in need, primarily as the crisis began. Members and other senior-serving organizations reached out by identifying entire buildings that could benefit from meal delivery as the City worked tirelessly to prop up its more expansive meal delivery effort.
“While our work has historically been focused on advocacy to bolster services for older adults, we recognized a need for this type of coordinated nutrition effort and quickly jumped in to help, stated Allison Nickerson, Executive Director of LiveOn NY. “Our core mission is to make New York a better place to age, so this effort just made sense.”
LiveOn NY was able to immediately and dramatically scale operations to meet an onslaught of demand by forming critical partnerships with several organizations with philanthropic arms, including:
Project Isaiah, a new non-profit that funded the airline catering company Gate Gourmet, so that it could continue preparing and packaging shelf-stable food items for distribution to seniors instead of airline passengers. The non-profit helped provide more than 170,00 meals.
World Central Kitchen, a continued hunger relief effort that acts as “food first responders” when emergency strikes, provided more than 55,000 meals.
“We are deeply grateful to the generosity of those who recognized the dire need among the senior population — those most at-risk to COVID-19 — and rushed to fill it,” said Ms. Nickerson.
In addition to meal delivery, LiveOn NY has continued prioritizing its ongoing efforts to ensure that non-profits are fully funded to provide older New Yorkers throughout New York City with nutrition and other supports. Currently this means advocating for a $26.2 million new City investment to fully fund home-delivered meal services in FY21, which would not only ensure non-profits can meet demand, but that they can also adequately compensate front-line workers putting their lives at risk to prepare and deliver meals.
“Illustrative of the need for funding, non-profit providers of these city-contracted meals currently lose money on every meal served, as the City reimburses at a rate 20% below the national average,” said Ms. Nickerson.
As stopgap philanthropic efforts ramp down, Nickerson anticipates that non-profits will continue striving to support older New Yorkers who are homebound and in need of services and nutrition support. She believes meaningful government investment is critical to ensuring non-profits can continue to meet demand, and the home-delivered meals program is a clear choice to be supported and expanded to fill this space.
“New York City must fulfill its commitment to those who have historically relied on home-delivered meals and need them now more than ever,” said Ms. Nickerson. “Currently, the lack of funds puts numerous non-profits financially at risk, threatening the stability of the entire HDM program.”
For more information on LiveOn NY, please visit http://www.liveon-ny.org.
About LiveOn NY
At LiveOn NY, we believe that all people have a future. Our work is centered on making sure that New York is a great place to age. We do this through targeted advocacy, data-driven policy, direct assistance & innovative programs. As a membership organization, we represent 100 agencies from small, single-site centers to large multi-service organizations. Through our work and membership, we represent the 3.2 million older New Yorkers and their caregivers.