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‘Blizzard Bags’ help needy stock up

Alex Zorn
  

Karissa Coombs, Jacob Coombs, Jaqueline Rojano, Ana Ibarra, and Casandra Espino help pack Blizzard Bags for this year.
Provided

To ensure its recipients are taken care of no matter the weather, Grand River Health’s Meals on Wheels program has delivered its “Blizzard Bags” to shut-in residents for the winter.

“They all went out the first and second week,” confirmed Grand River Meals on Wheels director Kaaren Peck. “Sometimes that’s not soon enough, but this year it worked out perfectly.”

Blizzard Bags have become an annual part of the Meals on Wheels program to better help food anxiety for the homebound Meals on Wheels clients in Western Garfield County, especially when the snow hits. During the snowy winter months, it helps to know there’s a meal if you need it.



Blizzard Bags have 48 hours of shelf stable food and provide meals to folks during inclement weather.

“These Blizzards Bags will lessen the food anxiety in some of our most vulnerable and it is always amazing when caring young adults, like these students, lend a hand to pack these bags for the homebound.”— Kaaren Peck,Grand River Meals on Wheels director

Funds for the project are provided through a grant from the Western Colorado Community Foundation’s Mary Catherine Gallarnau Blue Fund, totaling $1,500.



Throughout the year an estimated 17,000 meals will be distributed to seniors, disabled and hospice clients from New Castle to Parachute, according to Peck.

The meals are made at Grand River Café and delivered by approximately 75 volunteers throughout the week. Several Rifle High School students helped to put the Blizzard Bag program together.

“These Blizzards Bags will lessen the food anxiety in some of our most vulnerable and it is always amazing when caring young adults, like these students, lend a hand to pack these bags for the homebound”, Peck added.


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