‘Like Skip the Dishes for Meals On Wheels,’ how new technology is helping this Sudbury organization

A provincial grant to help develop new technology to help a non-profit in Sudbury is showing signs of success.

Last year, Sudbury’s Meals On Wheels received a $75,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The idea was for the organization to work with software developers to come up with an app to help streamline services.

Now, that app in in place and the interim executive director said the feedback has been positive.

“The volunteers on board are loving it,” Tammi Lear said. “They think it’s great. They’re very glad that we moved forward with it.”

The app puts in client information and addresses and volunteers can log in to access that information. A route is created for volunteers to follow to get meals out to clients.

Lear said before the app, she had to prepare those routes for staff and volunteers.

“It helps tremendously,” she said. “Because before, I would have to sit down and map out a route in Google Maps and try and find a best order for things. Now, it just automatically does it.”

To get the app working, Lear said she and other staff had several meetings with a technology firm in Toronto. Once the app was developed, the app was tested throughout the city to ensure it worked.

‘Better support’ volunteers

Lear said the app also provides useful information to her.

“We can see in the back end where our volunteers are on their route,” she said.

“So if it’s a bad, snowy day, and we have client calling saying ‘[The volunteer is] normally here an hour ago, where can they be?’ We can look in the back end and tell where the volunteer roughly is and let them know how much longer it should be. It’s kind of like Skip the Dishes for Meals on Wheels.”

Lear said they designed the app so other groups could adapt it for their own needs. She said so far, a few groups from southern Ontario have contacted her to get more details.

When the grant was awarded to Meals on Wheels, Sudbury MPP Jamie West said the money will help the organization operate better.

“This OTF (Ontario Trillium Foundation) grant will allow Meals On Wheels to better support their volunteers and the clients they service through the creation of a route management application,” he said.

“I was able to volunteer with Meals On Wheels … and saw firsthand how they play a vital role in our community by delivering hot meals to community members who are unable to prepare their own.”