(Friday, April 3, 2020 – New York, NY) As the designated emergency responder for the city’s seniors, Citymeals on Wheels is working on the frontlines of the Covid-19 outbreak to ensure older New Yorkers have nourishing meals during this public health crisis.

While expanded restrictions are keeping New Yorkers at home, the city’s home-delivered meal program is an essential service and continues at this time. For over 18,000 homebound elderly Citymeals recipients, who are too frail to shop or cook for themselves, these deliveries provide critical nourishment and a regular wellness check-in. Citymeals is also now serving an additional 22,000 older people who typically get their breakfast and lunch at local senior centers. 

Citymeals has already delivered 200,000 emergency meals to older New Yorkers across the five boroughs and is now preparing and delivering an additional 250,000 emergency meals to meet the growing demand. 

To address this unprecedented challenge, Citymeals has doubled its warehouse staff. Nearly 2,500 volunteers have stepped up to support Citymeals, since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, giving over 9,750 hours of support to pack and deliver meals for their frail aged neighbors.

We continue to take every precaution with staff and volunteers to ensure best hygiene practices, as established by Centers for Disease Control, are followed including social distancing. Our Friendly Visiting program, which connects volunteers with their isolated older neighbors, moved to telephone contact many weeks ago to reduce the chance of possible transmission of the virus.

Citymeals has received generous support from the public and donations from the culinary community to support our emergency response to Covid-19. We will continue to provide updates, as necessary.

The public can donate to support Citymeals’ emergency response at citymeals.org/donate. 100% of all public contributions will go to the preparation and delivery of meals.

For press inquiries email press@citymeals.org.

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Citymeals on Wheels (citymeals.org) provides a continuous lifeline of nourishing meals and vital companionship to New York City’s homebound elderly. Working in partnership with community-based organizations and senior centers, Citymeals prepares and delivers over 2 million weekend, holiday and emergency meals for more than 18,000 of our frail aged neighbors each year. Last year, over 26,000 individuals volunteered more than 90,000 hours of time to Citymeals’ mission.

Since its founding in 1981, Citymeals has relied on the generosity of its Board of Directors, the City of New York, sponsors and other designated gifts to cover administrative costs. This ensures that 100% of all public donations will be used entirely for the preparation and delivery of meals.