Help Us Continue to Feed Hungry Children and Seniors in Our Region.
Every day throughout our Region, parents put their children to bed hungry and seniors choose medicine over food. Based on 2022 USDA data, approximately 10% of all residents in Allegheny County experience food insecurity. For the individuals and families Heritage Community Initiatives is privileged to serve, that number rises to 18%.
How You Can Help
In the decade since its inception, Heritage Nutrition Services has proven to be a successful enterprise model that we want to ensure addresses need and is fiscally sustainable.
- This year alone, Heritage experienced a dramatic surge in demand boasting a 74% increase in contracts with fellow human service organizations
- The cost to prepare made-from-scratch meals far outpaces the reimbursement rate ($4.25/lunch) paid by the USDA, and does not address the significant delta of Heritage’s actual costs, including food, which has increased by 25.8% in the last three years
- Currently operating out of a small receiving kitchen that we renovated in 2017, our space restricts our ability to expand beyond reimbursable meals – ex. providing adult meals in a food desert – and our lease expires in 2026
Heritage recently concluded a two-year analysis that included searching all available potential facilities and resulted in the culmination of architects, contractors and experts in electrical, HVAC and plumbing designing the most cost effective and efficient kitchen in a building we currently own.
For these reasons, Heritage Community Initiatives is seeking an investment of $1.27 million to ensure we have the capacity to meet the increasing demand to feed hungry children and seniors in our region all year long.
If you require additional information on how your support will help, please email Heritage President and CEO, Paula G. McWilliams or call 412.351.0535.
Heritage Nutrition Services designs, prepares, and delivers food for organizations throughout the region who also feed at-risk populations. Please visit this page for more information on how we can support your nutrition program.