Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children

We at Rosie’s Place greatly appreciate your generous support through GlobalGiving of our critical Food Programs for poor and homeless women and their children.

Rosie’s Place’s Dining Room Program

Rosie’s Place’s Dining Roomis designed to solve short-term hunger needs by providing breakfast every weekday and lunch and dinner every day—365 days a year. This fiscal year, Rosie’s Place will serve more than 100,000 hearty and healthy—nutritionally balanced-meals—to women and their children.

During the second quarter of FY2018 from January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018:

• 4,662 weekday breakfasts were served.
• 1,970 weekend brunches were served.
• 8,178 lunches were served.
• 8,125 dinners were served.
• This is a total of 22,935 nutritious meals served during the quarter.

Rosie’s Place’s Groceries

Another vital food program is Rosie’s Place Groceries, a food pantry that allows nearly 1,900 women per month to take home 20 to 40 pounds of foods that their families prefer and enjoy. Rosie’s Place’s Groceries is unique. While many other agencies hand out pre-bagged groceries, our guests shop among shelves set up like a grocery store for foods their families will prefer and enjoy. Like our Dining Room, the Food Pantry uses this culturally sensitive approach to respect the dignity and self-esteem of our guests while ensuring that our resources are used effectively.

From January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018: Rosie’s Place’s Groceries’ staff:

• Welcomed 3,365 daytime and 2,128 evening guest visits for a total of 5,493 guest visits for the quarter.       *This total includes 2,493 visits from guests aged 65 and older, and of this group, 778 women returned for
      a second visit during the same month.

• Prepared pre-made bags of groceries for 23 guests who are unable to come to Rosie’s Place to shop.
  
  
• For the first time, Rosie’s Place’s Groceries staff conducted a voluntary basic health information survey. We collected information on guests’ high blood pressure, diabetes, heart issues, etc.—in order to help us better understand the dietary needs of our guests and provide appropriate food items.
  
  
• We recently celebrated the completion of renovations to our food pantry and storage area with a ribbon cutting. We are grateful to Joe Fallon and The Fallon Company, Turner Construction Company and many others who generously donated their services to this important project. Attached is a photo from our ribbon cutting event and features from left to right: Joe Fallon, President and CEO of The Fallon Company, Boston Mayor, Marty Walsh, Rosie's Place's President Sue Marsh and  Peter Davoren, President and CEO of Turner Construction Company. Guests, staff and volunteers alike, are thrilled with this new space.  

• The Food Pantry continues to organize Cooking Matters classes for guests on a monthly basis. These classes provide information on finding the healthiest choices available while shopping on a budget. On average, 14 guests too part in each class this quarter.

Rosie’s Place occupies a unique niche in Boston. For more than forty years, we have served women who no one else will. Thanks to our founding principles and our funding sources, we are free to serve any woman, any time. We are an extremely low-barrier community—we aim to make it as easy as possible for guests to use any and all of our services—in whatever combinations work for them. We don't ask our guests to provide proof of need or wait for approval before we can help them with their often urgent needs. Our help has no eligibility requirements and no expiration date. Our help is unconditional.

Thank you for supporting our Meals for Poor & Homeless Women & their Children program. Our guests couldn’t manage without Rosie’s Place. And we couldn’t manage without you. We are so grateful for your friendship.

Links:

• Our Spring 2018 Newsletter focuses on Food Access