OPEN ARMS

About OPEN ARMS

Open Arms is committed to providing the best possible meal service for our clients while striving to be a wonderful place for community members to volunteer. We work together to prepare, package and deliver meals that are nutritious, delicious and always delivered with kindness. And we are continually evaluating our processes to find ways to improve – more... our program - both for our clients and volunteers.

In December of 2005, Open Arms began a pilot program to deliver a week's worth of meals to our clients in St. Paul and the suburbs in just one delivery each week. This pilot has been a great success and has improved the quality of service for our clients. Beginning Monday, October 2, 2006, Open Arms will extend this weekly delivery model to all of our clients. The meals will be the same tasty Open Arms food, now delivered to all of our clients in just one delivery each week.

Following are answers to some commonly asked questions about this enhancement to our service:


Why do Open Arms clients like weekly meal deliveries?

It gives them more freedom - they have to be home once a week instead of five times. It gives them more choice. They have five meals to choose from. They can decide what meal they eat and what day they eat it. For clients undergoing treatment or taking medications that affect their appetite, there is a choice of foods in their homes for days when they can tolerate eating and want to eat more.

Who will receive weekly meal deliveries?

Ninety-five percent of Open Arms clients will receive their meals in a weekly delivery. Exceptions will be made for clients who will continue to benefit from a daily delivery for physical, emotional or food storage reasons. These decisions will be made by Open Arms' client services staff together with our clients.

What are the other benefits of delivering meals this way?

Delivering meals in weekly packages is a more effective use of volunteer time. We value our volunteers and want to honor their gift of time. Effectively using our volunteers' time is becoming increasingly important as the number of people we serve is growing. Delivering meals to clients weekly is more environmentally sound. It reduces volunteer gas usage and makes our program less vulnerable to sudden increases in gas prices. Frozen meals are safer, as we do not risk the meals rising into unsafe temperatures during delivery. All of our clients have compromised immune systems. We have a responsibility to ensure that our meals are prepared and delivered in the safest way possible. Modifying our meal delivery model will allow us to continue to expand our service to more people living with chronic & progressive illnesses in our community. We can effectively serve more people without adding stress or burden to our current volunteers.

If I am a delivery volunteer, what does this mean for me?

In the short-term, we anticipate this program modification will mean three things:


Your route will be shorter. Initially, your route may be as short as three stops. However, we anticipate the routes to grow back to five or six stops over the coming months as the number of people we serve continues to grow. Open Arms staff may ask you to consider delivering meals in a new neighborhood. If you've desired a change in your volunteer experience, this would be a perfect time to try something new! We will talk one-on-one with each of our delivery volunteers about any potential routing changes that may affect you. The packages of food you will be delivering will change. Instead of one entrée & one small lunch bag, Open Arms volunteers will be delivering a bag of five frozen entrees, a ½ gallon of milk & a grocery bag containing all of our breakfast and lunch items to each client. (See image of what this delivery will look like.) Open Arms will provide delivery baskets with wheels for any volunteers concerned about the size or weight of these new deliveries. – less – More from ZoomInfo »

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