Meals On Wheels Faces Budget Crunch

SPOKANE — Local charities are the latest causality of rising gas prices. Due to the skyrocketing cost of fuel, Spokane Meals on Wheels is facing a budget crunch.

Typically Meals on Wheels has a budget of about $5,000 a month for food.  Because Food distributors have been forced to raise prices, the cost of food has almost doubled.  Amarark, Meals on Wheels’ food distributor, has increased their prices by 20 percent from a year ago which means the organization is now paying almost $10,000 a month for food.

Nearly 400 senior citizens in Spokane depend on Meals on Wheels and as prices have gone up on food the organization has taken care of those rising costs. However volunteers who deliver the meals are picking up the tab for fuel.

“I’m sure its gonna limit the number of people they can get to do this,” volunteer Ron Clark said. “There will be people who want to do it who can’t afford to do this.”

Meals on Wheels has tried to consolidate routes to save money and entice voluneers as they simply can’t continue paying over $10,000 a month for food.