Senior citizens in Plano soon will receive a benefit from a lunch café and home delivered meals center being developed through a partnership between the Community Nutrition Network (CNN) and Plano Methodist Church.
“From our current base in Yorkville, we have been planning for some time to expand our services to under-reached areas of Kendall County,” said Elizabeth Bowman, Community Nutrition Network & Senior Services Association outreach coordinator for Kendall and Grundy Counties.
Community Nutrition Network (CNN) is a contracted provider of the Meals on Wheels Foundation of Northern Illinois, which has identified numerous areas of Kendall County as being under-reached, including Plano, parts of Oswego, and some of the more rural areas of the County. “We also want to ensure that we are providing services with consideration for socioeconomic conditions and ethnic diversity. So, Plano was always on our list for future expansion,” Bowman said.
CNN reached out to a number of potential collaborators in the Plano area, and the Plano Methodist Church responded quickly. “Pastor Steve Saunders and the Church Board were very open and generous in offering to support the program,” Bowman said.
The plan is to operate the new lunch café in the Church’s lower-level kitchen and dining area. “We are also installing a new accessibility device for the stairs to bring the site up to current ADA-compliance,” she said. “We are aiming to open by July 30, and the cafe will operate Monday to Friday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. except on federal holidays. Our site will also open as early as 7:30 a.m. preparing for the home-delivered meals service,” she added.
Bowman said they are planning a wide range of fun activities. In addition to bingo and movie days, guests can look forward to event parties, crafting workshops, and health and wellness sessions. “We’ll also host seasonal celebrations to keep things exciting and engaging for everyone,” she said.
Bowman reports that approximately 11% of the Plano population is age 60+, the qualifying age for Meals on Wheels. “Regardless of income, we offer a variety of options to help older adults with nutrition, including their new Dine Around Town program, where older adults can purchase from special restaurant menus at Planet Pizza and Two Partners Restaurant, both on Mitchell Street. There they can pick up frozen meals for the week. “There is a small suggested donation per meal, but no one is ever turned away if unable or unwilling to pay,” Bowman said.
The new Senior Lunch Café will be a relay site for Home Delivered Meals that are to be delivered to isolated seniors unable to frequent the Lunch Café. Hot meals will be packaged at the Plano Methodist Church, and volunteers can stop in to pick up the meals to deliver to neighbors in need.
Meals on Wheels routes are designed to make it easy to volunteer. “The routes take maybe an hour total,” Bowman said. “Many of our working volunteers accomplish their volunteer route over their lunch hour, and we can accommodate a variety of schedules for our volunteers,” she said. Volunteers are asked to please sign up at the website, www.cnnssa.org/volunteer. There you can find more information about the Dine Around Town and Café programs.
In addition to Planet Pizza and Two Partners Restaurant in Plano, CNN has several other restaurants in the Dine Around Town Program, including Maria’s Ristorante, R Place, and Weit’s Café in Morris, Dakotas Bar and Grille in Yorkville, and the Urban Kitchen in Plainfield. With the addition of the Plano Lunch Café, seniors finally can enjoy the camaraderie of friends and a nutritious congregate meal close to home.
Thank you, CNN, for bringing these great additions to the Plano community!
Barb Nadeau is a freelance writer, whose career has included more than 10 years as a public relations professional, 22 years as a professional television and radio host, print journalist, and volunteer coordination professional, networking among non-profit social service agencies and service providers throughout Illinois. She is a two-term elected alderman in the City of Plano. Contact Barb at bvnadeau@gmail.com.