Meals on Wheels Australia is the national peak body for community meal service providers in Australia and plays a vital role in advocating for over 590 services across the country.
Whether raising awareness about the importance of our essential service, to advocating for an increase in Government funding, Meals on Wheels Australia acts in the interests of our local services who support over 200,000 older Australians every year.
Some of these services don’t trade under the name ‘Meals on Wheels’ but nevertheless, deliver our life-changing and essential service to vulnerable members of our community.
A study into the housing choices of older Australians, completed by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission revealed 83% of respondents aged over 60 years old have a strong preference to live at home.
Given an older person can receive Meals on Wheels for an entire year for about the same public cost as just one day in hospital or one week in residential aged care, it is substantially more cost effective for the Government to invest funding into in-home and community support programs.
We are grateful to have partnered with the Federal Government to secure $50 million in funding for Meals on Wheels services, which helped provide our flavoursome and nutritious meals, as well as a wellbeing check to vulnerable Australians at a time where it was needed most.
We thank the Federal Government and the Department of Health for their support of Meals on Wheels and look forward to continuing to deliver our essential service in almost every community in Australia.
