2024 End of Year Campaign supporting Food Outreach
2024 End of Year Campaign supporting Food Outreach
About 2024 End of Year Campaign
At Food Outreach, we know good nutrition supports chronic illness treatment and plays a major role in our clients’ overall wellness. Our services disrupt the cycle of nutrition insecurity, malnutrition, and poor health by connecting clients to the resources they need to maintain a balanced diet and manage their diagnoses. As research consistently demonstrates, providing Medically Tailored Meals (MTM) to individuals living with nutrition insecurity and chronic illness is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to achieve improved and more equitable health outcomes.
More community members need our services each year. Through intakes provided by our registered dietitians, Food Outreach welcomed 592 new clients in 2023, a 10% increase over 2022. Moreover, 39% of these individuals were experiencing moderate to severe malnutrition, indicating issues which need to be addressed quickly as nutrition emergencies. Along with this and the many other stressors our clients experience each day, 83% of these individuals live at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), or $15,060 in annual income.
Our clients tell us that Food Outreach’s strengths are the nutrition which fuels their bodies and the dependability of our team of volunteers and staff. Our volunteers consistently show up for our clients. During 2023, Food Outreach benefited from the work and support of 1,705 volunteers—the equivalent of 10 full-time employees. We never have to sell our mission to our volunteers; many have battled cancer treatment themselves or with their loved ones, have lost partners to AIDS, or have parents and family members who struggle to manage chronic illnesses. Our volunteers, alongside Food Outreach’s 17 employees, understand that our bodies must have proper nutrition to work with treatments for improved health. Each member of the Food Outreach team plays a vital role in providing our services with care and expertise in every aspect of this special agency.
No one else in the state of Missouri or western Illinois does what we do. We are the only agency providing nutrition to support treatment for individuals living with the devastating effects of HIV and cancer.
With your generosity in the coming year, we will cook and deliver more than 500,000 freshly prepared, medically tailored meals that will help our clients feel better physically and give them the love and support we all deserve.
Together we can make nutritious food accessible to all.
Please make a year-end donation and help us meet an unprecedented and growing need in our community.
Date
Starts at: October 23, 2024 12:00 AM
Ends at: December 31, 2024 12:00 AM
Location
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Contact
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Meet Sharon, Food Outreach Home-Delivery Client
“If you’ve donated to Food Outreach—you’ve donated to me. I’m 44 years old now, and my mother died at 44 of cancer, so just to get to 44 is a big deal for me. The first time I spoke with Rachel (one of Food Outreach’s registered dietitians), I felt like a weight was lifted—that’s how deep and heavy my diagnosis felt at the time. I’m so, so grateful for Food Outreach.”
Learn more about Sharon's journey with Food Outreach
Sharon received her first diagnosis of cervical cancer in September 2023. After ruling out surgical intervention, she received a treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. Struggling from the side effects of the treatment, Sharon’s social worker suggested she contact Food Outreach for nutrition support.
Her first home delivery arrived in January just when she needed it most—after months of battling nausea—Sharon was finally able to enjoy a meal again. Her favorite meals from Food Outreach are the Salmon and the Chicken Crema. However, it is the thought put into the meals that Sharon appreciates the most. “The containers are the perfect size—with the use-by date and nutrition information on the lid. The attention to detail from Food Outreach has been amazing. You can just tell that it's been put together by people who are actually passionate and care about what they're doing. When I get the delivery box, I can feel the love that has gone into putting it all together.”
In February, after becoming a Food Outreach client, Sharon received her second diagnosis of cancer in less than six months. “The last radiation appointment was in February, and just after that they found thyroid cancer. It came up on the PET scan and they did a biopsy. I had the operation in April and they removed the left thyroid.”
Food Outreach has also been a help to Sharon’s husband, Chase, as a caregiver. “I can say as a husband that what Food Outreach provided was not just food—it provided another level of ease for me because in the midst of all this, you feel helpless because you can't really do much to help or offer your loved one relief. You're going to the appointments and you're there for emotional support and all that other stuff. But the tangible, the material, the physical, those delivery boxes are like their own individual little gifts, and it's kind of a reprieve because you're trying to figure out what she can eat, what she can keep down, and what she can tolerate. The variety of food made a huge difference.”
Sharon is now cancer free, but she is still processing the past year and everything she has gone through since she was first diagnosed with cancer. “It has been a journey where I’ve met people who have really changed my perspective. Sometimes I feel like I'm still processing everything that’s happening, while other times it feels like I already understand it. Expressing what I feel can be challenging, but overall, the experience has been amazing. It has exceeded whatever I imagined, and this is not just about the products themselves, but about the people and how they have managed everything. It has all been so wonderful. I truly appreciate it. Thank you."
Click here to read more about Sharon.
