Meals on Wheels Diablo Region Chosen to Receive Major Gift

Meals on Wheels Diablo Region is proud to announce they have been chosen as one of 384 non-profits to share over $4 billion donated by writer and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

Last July, Scott asked a team of advisors to help accelerate her 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the Covid-19 crisis. They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and significant results. The advisors paid special attention to organizations operating in communities with high food insecurity, issues of racial inequity, local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital. The advisors considered 6,490 non-profits from across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. before narrowing it down to the 384 recipients.

“Learning about the rigorous process used to identify the beneficiaries makes us even more honored to have been chosen as one of the recipients of this very generous donation,” says Caitlin Sly, MOW Diablo Region Executive Director. “This donation will have a major impact on the lives of vulnerable seniors who depend on MOW Diablo Region by allowing us to continue to fulfill our mission of combating food insecurity and providing life-improving services to seniors so they can remain in their homes with dignity.” MOW Diablo Region was only one of three meals on wheels in California to receive this donation.

Scott posted a list of the hundreds of organizations that received funds in her Medium blog post. The services provided by these groups include food banks, emergency relief funds, debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.

In a statement Scott said, "These 384 carefully selected teams have dedicated their lives to helping others, working and volunteering and serving real people face-to-face at bedsides and tables, in prisons and courtrooms and classrooms, on streets and hospital wards and hotlines and frontlines of all types and sizes, day after day after day."

Meals on Wheels Diablo Region is an independent non-profit that not only delivers meals but provides wraparound services such as Fall Prevention classes and home modifications, Care Management, elder abuse prevention, exercise and nutrition classes, Friendly Visitors, and Friendly Callers.

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