This Is Why We're Here, Phyllis' Story
Thanks to our dedicated donors, we’ve been able to provide medically tailored meals—meals designed by our registered dietitians and prepared with care to meet the specific nutritional needs of each client. These meals are more than just food; they are a lifeline, helping clients manage symptoms, regain their energy during treatment, consistently take their medications, and maintain their strength and dignity. The letter below was written by a client named Phyllis, who lives alone at age 84 in a senior care facility in North Minneapolis. Phyllis has been receiving meals from Open Arms for almost 3 years and wrote to us to make a donation and share her thoughts.
THIS is why we’re here and this is why you support us. To provide Phyllis – and clients like her – meals and friendship when we come to her door.
Not only does Open Arms provide critically ill clients like Phyllis physical nourishment by delivering made-in-our-kitchen, medically tailored meals to her home, our staff members provide resources, support and education that accompany client meals. Staff and volunteers cook and pack meals with love and care in our kitchens, and deliver messages of hope and friendship to a client’s front door. Sometimes those messages of hope are the only interactions our clients have in their day.
We need your help to continue to be there for Phyllis, and our more than 1,700 other clients. That is why we’re thrilled to share that the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation has generously awarded a $50,000 matching grant for all gifts made to Open Arms through September, dollar for dollar. That means the impact of your gift to clients in need DOUBLES this summer.
In February, we shared that federal and state funding shortfalls were threatening how we serve our most vulnerable neighbors—people like Phyllis, who are living with life-threatening illnesses and depend on Open Arms for nutritious, medically tailored meals and vital nutrition support.
Since then, your support and generosity has been nothing short of extraordinary. Together, we continue to build community. We continue to lead the food is medicine movement. We continue to show up for our critically ill neighbors – delivering meals made with love.
Please consider giving again today—and doubling your impact—to ensure no one faces critical illness alone and isolated. Your steadfast support helps us deliver more than just meals. Your generosity delivers comfort. It delivers hope. It delivers friendship to Phyllis twice a month – and hundreds more clients like her every week.
We’ll get through the challenges of these times the way we always have—by leaning into the values that Open Arms was built upon: community, abundance, innovation, and hope. And by continuing to grow the circle of compassion and kindness that our founder, Bill Rowe, began almost 40 years ago.
