Go Behind the Scenes with Miami Valley Meals

Recently, I had the chance to enjoy lunch at Miami Valley Meals (MVM) with Executive Director, Amanda DeLotelle, after a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. This is a seriously fantastic nonprofit organization that is providing such a unique service for the community.

How it Started

During the early days of the pandemic, a group of restaurant workers from Dayton restaurants suddenly found themselves unable to go to work due to closures. At the same time, people throughout the region were similarly facing uncertain times due to layoffs, rising costs, lack of access to transportation, and more. Restaurants and other facilities also tend to have more food than they can use and often nowhere to donate it efficiently.

The idea for Miami Valley Meals emerged from this cross section of food industry professionals having time on their hands, the growing need in the community, and restaurants having excess food in need of rescue. Pooling these resources created an opportunity to offer healthy, satisfying prepared meals made with care to organizations that provide assistance to people in Dayton who could use support.

How it’s Going

The chefs at MVM pull together cohesive meals from disparate fresh ingredients MVM rescues from restaurants, caterers, and grocery stores.

MVM makes use of every inch of space they have and they are in the process of planning a larger building with features that would make it easier to scale up production, store more meals and ingredients, and receive donations from a wider variety of sources. In the meantime, students from University of Dayton have created unique engineering solutions to help MVM max out the use of their existing building.

How it Works

• Rescued ingredients are recovered from restaurants, etc.
• Chefs analyze what is coming in and plan a meal around these ingredients
• Chefs and volunteers prep, cook, and portion meals into plastic containers
• Volunteers place plastic containers on a conveyer that seals them with a label featuring the name of the meal, ingredients list, and any allergens
• Meals are packed and stacked in one of their freezers (one is named Freeze Witherspoon, another Frosie Perez)
• Partners from a variety of nonprofit organizations pull up to MVM to take meals to distribute to their community using a handy conveyer from the front window
• Repeat

How to Help

The need in Dayton for meals, food items from food banks, and other household and personal necessities has never been greater with the recent gutting of SNAP and other supportive services. These policies endanger families and stretch limited resources thin, creating a crunch that can only get worse if not reversed soon.

What you can do to help Miami Valley Meals:

• Volunteer
• Donate
• Buy their spice blends – the money goes back to MVM, plus they’re delicious.

• Keep an ear to the ground – if you hear about shipments of food that can’t be delivered, or a company asking around if there’s a place to donate large quantities of food that would otherwise go to waste (e.g. last minute canceled weddings, rained out catered events, etc.), drop MVM a line. It’s possible they can use it to create meals or help point them in the right direction otherwise.
• Vote – Lend your support to candidates and issues that help alleviate need in our community.
• Remember – all of us are a few bad turns away from needing assistance – help when and where you can, but don’t be too proud to receive help when you need it.