Meals on Wheels Samford (MOW) was very grateful to receive a grant from the Samford and Districts Progress & Protection Association (SDPPA) in their March 2022 grant round, to purchase an automatic sandwich sealing machine. The machine uses environmentally friendly, biodegradable packaging and is a very efficient machine.
“It’s amazing the difference one item of machinery can make. Our meals are regularly departing earlier from the SCHUB now, instead of later,” said Dee Medway, who coordinates the service alongside Tanja Ungerer.
The kitchen services 390 clients on average per day and usually at least 120 sandwiches, so having a machine that can manage this process efficiently has been very well received.
“The current packaging method was slow and used less environmentally friendly packaging that could open in transit, causing cross contamination and leakage,” said Dee.
The sandwich sealer has streamlined the sandwich packaging process, enabling two sandwiches to be sealed hygienically at once, ensuring it gets to the customers on time and in pristine condition.
MOW Samford is a very busy service. In June alone, just under 2000 meal items were delivered, an increase of 300 items from the previous month.
Dee and Tanja are so grateful to a committed team of volunteers who arrive each day to deliver meals across Samford and surrounding areas. But they’d always welcome more.
“We are definitely in need of kitchen volunteers for 2 days a week. This is a very light duties role of 4 hours per day, once a week, 9.30am until 1.30pm. Duties include cleaning, welcoming volunteers, and minor administration tasks preparing the delivery runs for departure.”
If you have a few hours to spare for this very worthy cause, get in touch with Dee or Tanja via email: samford@mowpr.org.