LSS Offers Senior Meals Through the Mail

(KNSI) – Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota has a new way for seniors to get healthy, heat-and-eat meals delivered to their home.

Kristin Quenzer, Senior Director of LSS Meals tells KNSI that box meals through the mail is a way for seniors who may not have access to traditional hot meal delivery to still get healthy meals. “We know that a lot of seniors in the St. Cloud area, and actually throughout the state of Minnesota, are not close to a grocery store or a place to get healthy food. Sometimes they’re outside the city limits. We still have a lot of individuals living on family farms. And it’s difficult at times to get daily hot meals to their homes. So we created a shipped meal option where we ship individuals 14 meals directly to their home. So they get the same home-cooked meals, we freeze them, and they can eat them when they want to pull them out of the freezer and reheat them.”

Quenzer says the meals are designed by a dietician to help keep seniors healthy. “The box includes a meal that covers 1/3 of the daily nutrition allowances for seniors. It includes the proteins, the vegetables, the fruit, and then we throw in a dessert for every meal.” The first box contains a sample pack of 14 meals, and then the senior can choose from a menu of 35 items.

Each box contains 14 frozen meals that can be reheated with either a microwave or conventional oven.

To register for the shipped meal program, call 1-800-488-4146. Quenzer hopes a website will be built soon to automate the process.

Operators will help determine if seniors qualify for programs to offset the cost of the program. Each meal costs $9.00.

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