Garfield County commissioners have agreed to fund 160 meals per week for seniors through Valley Meals and More, helping the nonprofit maintain its full delivery service.  

Valley Meals and More delivers warm, ready-to-eat meals on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to adult residents over 60 years old in eastern Garfield County, including Glenwood Springs, West Glenwood, Carbondale, Missouri Heights, El Jebel, the Crystal Valley and other unincorporated parts of the county. 

In 2024, Valley Meals delivered over 2,000 meals every month to a total of 224 unique older adults, ending the year with 2,566 deliveries in December alone.

At the beginning of this year, Valley Meals and More reduced certain programs to stretch the organization’s limited funding in the face of a formidable deficit of over $8,000 a month. 

The nonprofit discontinued Wednesday meal deliveries to Manor One and Manor Two apartments in Glenwood Springs in January. Manor residents were already receiving meals four days a week, and the additional meal, introduced in April 2024, was intended to utilize unused, contracted congregate meals from the county. However, this arrangement soon became an additional expense of approximately $400 per week.

Additionally, meal delivery to 25 residents at Crystal Meadows in Carbondale was temporarily suspended. In February, Valley Meals and More resumed the service for eligible and interested residents and covered part of the funding gap with a grant from the Town of Carbondale. 

During the regular Garfield Board of County Commissioners meeting on March 24, commissioners Tom Jankovsky, Perry Will, and Mike Samson unanimously agreed to allocate $33,000 to Valley Meals and More. The funds will be used to reimburse Valley Meals and More for 40 meals daily, four days a week, for low-income, homebound seniors aged 75 and above until the end of June.

With the county’s support, the nonprofit is set to move forward “full steam ahead,” according to Executive Director Mary Kenyon. 

“I was elated on behalf of the older adults that need these meals,” Kenyon said. “We’re excited to be working with the county and we’re delighted that we didn’t have to suspend any service to the low income residents of Garfield County.”

Those 40 meals cost around $480 a day and account for nearly a third of Valley Meals’s daily deliveries, according to data presented to commissioners during a March 18 work session with the Garfield County Department of Human Services.

“Other funding sources have experienced budget cuts, so the importance of these meals becomes elevated because there aren’t as many opportunities to go to the food banks and when you get to the food banks there isn’t as much food, especially food geared toward older adults,” Kenyon said. 

The Department of Human Services is negotiating a contract with Valley Meals and More to establish a full-service food support program for seniors residing in Eastern Garfield County. Starting in July, the county will fund 320 meals per week, including five deliveries to three congregate meal sites in Glenwood Springs and Carbondale and 40 packaged meals for home delivery four days a week, for an entire year.

“In the human service department, we always look at a safety net, and this is truly a safety net for people who don’t have other resources,” Jankovsky said during the March 24 meeting. 

In the meantime, Valley Meals and More is diligently pursuing grants to cover the remaining 500 meals the nonprofit delivers to seniors each week. 

“These 40 meals are significant in the lives of these older adults because in the broader scheme of things, they don’t have transportation to get to the grocery store and when they get to the grocery store the prices are higher than they’ve ever been. Then they have to go through the process of preparing a balanced meal, which isn’t easy, from both a physical, mental and financial standpoint,” Kenyon said. “So us bringing these meals to them, a balanced nutritious meal four days a week that they can portion out to last them the other three days, allows them to stay healthy and stay out of the hospital and age in place with dignity, which is our mission.”