My Biz: Director oversees Meals on Wheels

By Katie Mills Giorgio, correspondent

Name: Dianna Young

Title: Director

Company: Horizons Meals on Wheels

Address: 819 Fifth St. SE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 398-9574

Website: www.MealsOnWheelsCR.org

Elevator pitch: “Horizons Meals on Wheels is a promise of nutritional excellence.”

CEDAR RAPIDS - Dianna Young started her job as director of Horizons Meals on Wheels in June 2008, just one week before the flood.

“Our CEO came into the kitchen and said, ‘We are going to get some water in here. What should we do?'” Young recalled.

Volunteers flocked in to help prepare and deliver two hot meals and two frozen meals to all clients before the flood hit, Young said. The kitchen eventually was filled with eight feet of water and the program was temporarily moved to Regis Middle School.

“But no one missed a meal,” Young said. “That whole experience made me say I really like this job and I like these people.”

Today, Young oversees the program that serves 450 hot meals to seniors over the lunch hour seven days a week.

Also under Young's direction, Meals on Wheel started producing its own frozen meals. It also operates the Meals on Wheels Pantry, which provides breakfast bags that contain enough groceries for seven well-balanced breakfast meals.

Plus, it also prepares 600 to 700 meals a day for the local Head Start program.

While Young oversees a staff of 14 full-time and three part-time employees, Meals on Wheels is heavily dependent on volunteers.

“Our volunteers are very important to us,” she said, explaining that they handle 28 of the 30 Meals on Wheels daily delivery routes. “I am not exaggerating when I say that without the volunteers there would not be a program.”

The volunteer base is just more than 200.

“My favorite part of my job is when we are short on drivers for a day and I get to go out and deliver meals,” she said. “You may be the only person that client sees all day, and you bring them food and a smile.

“If there weren't so many administrative duties, I'd do it more often.”

Young starts her day with a walk though the kitchen to say hello and check on production. After a few meetings, she always makes time to be back in the kitchen as volunteers arrive to assemble and pick up the day's meals.

“I'm only at my desk as much as the paperwork requires because I'd much rather interact with our clients and volunteers,” she said.

On Fridays, Young spend her lunch hour eating at one of the satellite sites Meals on Wheels operates in Iowa and Benton Counties - “It's like going to lunch with grandma and grandpa.”

Young came to Meals on Wheels from the Heritage Agency on Aging where she worked as a nutrition consultant.

“I came from the funder level but knew that I wanted to get my hands in there and operate a program myself,” she said. “It was a great career move because I like the more direct client contact and figuring out how to manage our funding.”

Funding is, not surprisingly, the biggest challenge Young faces in her day-to-day work.

“There's just not enough money,” noted Young, who's looking at a $10,000 cut in her budget for next year. “I have to balance providing enough meals and coming up with alternative ways to fund the program.”

Young remains committed to not having a waiting list at Meals on Wheels.

“My vision for the program,” she said, “is that no senior in our community goes hungry.”