Prepared Dinners

Prepared Dinners

Duties: A Prepared Meals Program Manager organizes food preparation and delivery to housebound people; gets funding for programs and food purchases; coordinates staffing of paid and volunteer workers; develops menus with balanced diets; runs a food production facility that meets local health standards; coordinates cooking, packaging, and delivery of meals to those in need; and often feeds volunteer or hired staff and drivers. Advance preparation for food distribution during disasters should also be part of the job.
Salary Range: Volunteer ($0) to $50,000
Education and Training — Culinary programs that include management at a community or junior college would be helpful, but passion for helping others will go a long way
Experience — Experience cooking for large groups, mathematical skills to enlarge recipes, fund-raising capabilities, and organizational experience, particularly with nonprofits, are all advised
Special Skills and Personality Traits — Passion for helping people, tolerance of different kinds of people, possibly a second language pertinent to the community; a talent for talking grocery stores and other contributors into donating food, and for talking local farmers into growing extra vegetables for the program’s meals will take an applicant a long way.

Position Description
Meals on wheels and county and church programs deliver food to people who cannot leave their homes because of age or medical conditions. Either paid staff or volunteers or a combination of the two get donated food or purchase the food, prepare it, package it in hot trays or bags, and deliver it to housebound clients.

A new role for Prepared Meals Program Manager should include advance planning and preparation for food distribution during disasters, whether natural or created.

The manager of a prepared meals distribution program organizes or coordinates the entire operation, including raising money, setting and complying with the budget, establishing relationships with farmers, bakers, and grocers to get good deals or donations of food or money, or works with county officials in their food distribution efforts. He or she must also make sure health practices are always up to date and performed well enough to pass unannounced government inspections. There must be one person on site at all times who is versed and certified in safe food practices.

The program needs a home, and the manager has to find a certified kitchen, either in a county building, church, senior center, part time restaurant, or other facility where workers can prepare and assemble the meals to be distributed. He or she has to attract paid staff or volunteers and coordinate their schedules, and develop and comply with a budget, whether it comes from a government agency, grants, or from community donations.

Rent, food costs, refrigerators and freezers, disposable hot tray inserts, paper bags, liability insurance, and any salaries all must be figured into the budget. In some cases, and if the manager has good relations with local farmers and bakers, those people will occasionally grow and bake extra food for the distribution program.

Recipes must be tested, tried, and modified to stretch ingredients for a large volume of clients, occasionally with sensitivity for special diets.

Prepared Dinners

  Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners

 Prepared Dinners