Meals on Wheels of Tippecanoe County: Some Background

A Historical Overview
During World War II, the Womens Volunteer Service for Civil Defense began preparing and
distributing meals for fellow citizens and soldiers Meals on Wheels.
Following World War II, a woman named of Margaret Toy created the first trial delivery program
that provided nutritious meals for the elderly who might otherwise starve. Platter angels would
prepare, package and deliver to senior citizens in their area; most of them being high school
students. Most meals included a cold meat sandwich, a side dish and milk. This program grew
from Pennsylvania in to Ohio and New York and spread like wildfire in the 50s and 60s across
the nation (History of Meals).
Meals on Wheels America was officially established in 1974 and now funds over 5,000 local
branches nationwide with over 2 million volunteers amongst them (Meals On Wheels, 2016).
Meals on Wheels America is currently headed by CEO, Ellie Hollander in Arlington, VA.

Meals on Wheels of Tippecanoe County was previously a separate entity but has recently
partnered with the senior center at Jenks Rest (Senior Center Lafayette, 2016).

Senior Independence in Tippecanoe County

Independence among senior citizens is on the decline due to lack of ability to move around
and/or other health issues. While it is a blessing to live long lives, as it becomes more common,
there are more accommodations to the elderly that need to be made, especially with the growing
number of relatives moving to different places and not always being readily accessible to their
older family members.
The Baby Boomer generation will make the senior population increase from 18 percent in 2010
to 26 percent in 2050. Thats more than a quarter of the country. Researchers are calling this the
age wave. If that statistic isnt convincing enough, the number of seniors will increase to 112
million by 2050 That is double what it was in the year 2010.
Meals on Wheels provides nutritious meals to ensure that senior citizens arent forced in to
nursing homes or other living facilities early than necessary, if at all. The best part about this
program is that it costs less than 1 day in the hospital and a week in a nursing home to supply a
senior with meals for a whole year. Not only does it serve as a means to get nutritious food to our
elderly community members, but it also serves as a way of making sure theyre doing alright on
a daily basis and providing interaction with someone besides a pet since many seniors live alone.
Meals on Wheels of Tippecanoe County works to make this a reality for our own senior citizens
in need. Our local branch is no exception to the greater efforts of preventing these statistics from
coming true. Partnering with IU Health and offering volunteering opportunities to the

community as well as creating their own programs to address unique issues, this branch is well
on their way to success.
Services include daily preparation and packaging by the IU Health Center and deliveries of lunch
and dinner meals to every client, various events throughout the month of March for Meals on
Wheels annual March for Meals, andperhaps the most uniqueAnimeals. This program
was started after finding that many of their clients in the area, while being able to buy meals for
themselves, they still werent able to afford pet food and were giving their meals to their animals.
In response, Meals on Wheels created a program in which clients can also order meals for their
pets without having to give up theirs.

Communication Problems for Meals on Wheels of Tippecanoe County

Ultimately, the problem Meals on Wheels of Tippecanoe County is faced with is a lack of
marketing and promotion of services and benefits due to a number of issues. These include a lack
of resources to gain and maintain appropriate media to generate awareness, inability to gear
certain media toward their target audiences in a way that will generate a response and the most
obvious one of a lack of funding.
The lack of resources to gain and maintain appropriate media to generate awareness stems from
this particular branchs decision to not place enough importance on the realm of social media.
While the majority of senior citizens do not utilize social media to much of an extent, potential
volunteers, donors and sponsors do. By exposing the Tippecanoe branch to audiences 50 years of
age and under through social media outlets, the board will be able to generate more awareness

about the program as a whole at the very least and could see an increase in volunteers and donors
and sponsors.
The second issue feeds in to the first a great deal. Perhaps the lack of resources goes hand in
hand with a lack of knowledge in gearing marketing tools toward specific audiences that Meals
on Wheels of Tippecanoe County wants to target. In other words, especially with social media,
there is a lack of expertise and interest on up and coming technology. For example, engaging
with the Purdue Community would make a much more significant impact if there was a social
media presence for the local chapter. In addition to creating a social media presence for certain
audiences, there is a specific way to go about appealing to them. There are certain services and
benefits that this organization can emphasize with each of its publics but in order to do that, there
needs to be more effort spent on finding the direction to go with it. Once the action is put in
place, this particular chapter is going need to know how to make it appeal to the community both
as a whole and as individual groups of publics.
The last issue of a low budget or lack of funding feeds in to the 2 issues mentioned prior and is
fairly common among non-for-profit organizations. There is a lack of funding due to the minimal
and misuse of coverage of marketing throughout Tippecanoe County. If there was more
awareness throughout the area, the eagerness to donate and sponsor a company with such a good
cause and reputation. There are many businessmen and women in the Lafayette area that would
make donations or might even commit their company to being a corporate sponsor. Not only
would Meals on Wheels gain the funding, but the companies would gain more promotion for
lending a helping hand and also by mere exposure with adequate means of marketing.

Objectives to Respond to Communication Problems

In order to help resolve the communication problems for the local chapter of Meals on Wheels,
there are some specific objectives that should be implemented. Firstly, raise awareness of the
problem that Meals on Wheels aims so high to resolve. In order for people to want to help, they
must realize how prevalent the problem is. Secondly, create awareness of the services offered by
Meals on Wheels that help to fix the problem. The more services publics are aware of, the more
the community will see Meals on Wheels is doing for their fellow citizens. And thirdly, expand
the Meals on Wheels diaspora. Move past county boundaries and grow in to surrounding
counties. Encourage those communities to join and help too.