MIFA History II continued Feeding the Hungry Moves MIFA MIFA was awarded a Delta Area Agency on Aging grant to deliver meals to homebound seniors scattered throughout the community and in three adjoining counties in 1976. When the program actually began, no one knew where the number of volunteers the program required could be found. But Home Delivered Meals Coordinator Virginia Hiett and her VISTAs triumphed. In 1981 MIFA was also awarded the contract for the congregate meals program. Continuing expansion of the meals program coincided with the loss, in 1984, of Cook Convention Center for their preparations. 910 Vance Avenue, once Robilio's Cafeteria and Grocery, met MIFA's growing needs with its kitchen facilities, warehouse space and room for program administration. With a loan from the Community Foundation, MIFA acquired the Vance property and left, somewhat reluctantly, the warm but now cramped quarters it had occupied for a decade at First Presbyterian Church, for a new home. Today the Meals Program, under the direction of Dianne Polly and Maureen Taylor, prepares and distributes 3000 hot meals each day. Approximately 100 volunteers deliver MIFA Meals to 1200 homebound seniors each weekday. MIFA still provides meals to active seniors at congregate sites throughout the four-county region. Special Delivered Meals provide hot meals at noon for a small fee. That program has no eligibility requirements. MIFA continued to expand its hunger programs in the 1980s. An exciting new source of food had become available from wholesalers with the change in tax laws which allowed credits for food donations to agencies feeding the hungry. VISTA Virginia Dunaway was challenged with what would be known as the Memphis Food Bank. Other volunteers, Elizabeth Boyle, Mary Galbreath and Missie Pidgeon, helped by soliciting donations and community support. Seven years after its founding it distributed over 3 million pounds of donated food annually through 200 community agencies. The Memphis Food Bank became a part of the Second Harvest national food-banking network in 1989. Dunaway received the 1986 Thomas W. Briggs Foundation annual service award. MIFA's 37 Food Pantries and five collection sites continue to provide three-day emergency supplies of food to families in crisis. In 1997 the pantries provided 614,376 meals! More than 400 volunteers made this possible by shopping, sorting, packing and delivering food. Next: Working With and For Older Americans