UNF's Meals on Wings Delivers 250,000 Free Meals to Jacksonville Seniors

UNF’s Meals on Wings Hits 250,000 Free Meals for Jacksonville Seniors

Two hundred fifty thousand meals. Delivered. The University of North Florida’s Meals on Wings program crossed that threshold recently across Duval County, News4JAX reported, serving 300 seniors identified through community centers with food brought by student volunteers three times a week.

The program, created in 2019 through UNF’s College of Health, arrives as grocery and fuel prices climb, squeezing older residents on fixed incomes. For many, the barrier is not just price. It is the trip itself.

Catherine King Has No Car

To buy groceries, King walks to the bus stop and rides public transportation to the store, where she can purchase only what she can carry home.

“I wouldn’t be able to buy a lot. I could only buy for, like, a couple of days,” King said.

Meals on Wings removes that errand entirely. Volunteers bring food directly to King and other seniors at the Schell-Sweet Community Resource Center on Kings Road. Marie Heath, the center’s director, calls the meals a supplement that changes the math of a senior’s monthly budget.

UNF’s Meals on Wings delivers 250,000 free meals to Jacksonville seniors — Photo: newsbeep.com

“They get to save the money they normally would have to spend on food, and it’s right there for them to pop into the microwave,” Heath said.

Leftover Meatloaf, Packaged at UNF

The logistics run through UNF’s own kitchen. On a recent delivery, Advisory Chef Meghan Niemczyk and a student volunteer dropped off 120 meals for 30 seniors. Students package the meals using food donated by local hospitals — surplus that would otherwise be thrown away.

The hospital partnership works like a quiet redistribution system. When a hospital menu offers chicken and rice one day and meatloaf and mashed potatoes the next, patient orders decide which dish has leftovers.

UNF’s Meals on Wings delivers 250,000 free meals to Jacksonville seniors

“Often hospitals will offer on their menu chicken and rice today or meatloaf and mashed potatoes. If more people ordered meatloaf and mashed potatoes, they have more chicken and rice so they save it for us,” Niemczyk explained.

Instead of discarding the extra portions, the hospitals donate the food. Volunteers pick it up and divide it into individual meals at the Meals on Wings kitchen at UNF.

Broccoli, Blood Pressure, and a New Taste for Quinoa

For Mildred Flagg, the program has changed more than her grocery bill. She said the meals helped her make healthier choices, pointing to the vegetables and chicken in the deliveries.

“I love the vegetables they have — the broccoli, the string beans, and the chicken,” Flagg said.

She connects the meals to health goals she discusses with others at the center, including managing blood pressure and A1C levels. Cooking classes led by Niemczyk have pushed King in the same direction. King said she used to dislike quinoa and asparagus, and that she has learned she doesn’t need salt in her food.

What 300 Seniors Doesn’t Cover

The milestone leaves an open question behind. The program serves 300 seniors, reached because community centers identified them. Duval County’s senior population facing the same grocery and fuel price squeeze is far larger than 300. The program is explicitly a supplement, not a full grocery replacement — Heath’s own word — so for seniors without a car, the carrying limit doesn’t disappear; it just gets easier some days.

Niemczyk hopes to build on the work at Schell-Sweet by creating a community kitchen at UNF where people can take cooking classes and learn to eat healthier. Whether that kitchen materializes depends on funding, and the program says monetary donations are the best way to support it. More information is available by visiting UNF.edu and searching Meals on Wings.

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