Congratulations to Hood River County on their successful application to the Oregon Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program! In June, the County was awarded $987,299 to fund kitchen renovations at the Hood River Valley Adult Center.
The Adult Center’s Meals on Wheels program is the primary source of nutritious, daily meals for low-income seniors and homebound adults in Hood River County. The Center has been preparing meals for seniors for 30 years, both in-house and through Meals on Wheels deliveries.
The Adult Center’s kitchen has reached the critical point where their kitchen must be updated: the equipment is old, the layout is inefficient, and the physical space itself is starting to fail. With production more than doubled during the pandemic, the kitchen has been pushed past its useful working capacity. An updated, more efficient kitchen will help reduce food insecurity for hundreds of seniors and homebound community members every year.
The County has worked with the Adult Center, Paul Lindberg of Hat Creek Consulting and MCEDD staff to submit a complete grant application to the CDBG program. Dollars contributed towards the Center’s fundraising campaign to support renovation costs are matched by the CDBG grant funding that has been awarded to the County for this project. The project is expected to start immediately, with initial focus on meeting funding requirements before moving into renovations. Hood River County will be utilizing MCEDD’s grant management services throughout the project to ensure that the funding requirements are met.