History:

The Caesars Foundation has been one of MOWAA’s most generous and longest tenured partnerships and has provided $3 million of critical support for MOWAA’s Member programs and strategic initiatives.

The Caesars Foundation continues to be the prime national sponsor of the March For Meals campaign year after year. March For Meals, an annual national campaign held each March, is designed to increase public awareness, recruit new volunteers and increase funding for MOWAA Member programs. Caesars has also underwritten two of MOWAA’s major research studies, “Senior Hunger in the United States: Differences across States and Rural and Urban Areas” and “The Causes, Consequences, and Future of Senior Hunger in America.”

In addition, the Caesars Foundation has donated over 50 delivery vehicles to local MOWAA Member programs across the country and has enabled MOWAA to establish the “Caesars Institute for Volunteer Management” at the Meals On Wheels Leadership Academy.

Impact:

MOWAA’s partnership with the Caesars Foundation has a profound impact on Meals On Wheels programs in the United States. Caesars continued sponsorship of the annual March For Meals campaign allows MOWAA to award over one hundred grants of up to $2,500 to MOWAA Member programs each year for successfully executing their own local March For Meals campaigns. Thanks to these grants, Meals On Wheels programs across the country are able to direct funds towards their most urgent needs, such as replacing cooking equipment and starting new delivery routes. March For Meals generates a large amount of money and volunteers for Member programs, but the campaign is especially known for the extraordinary amount of press it receives each March.  

The groundbreaking research underwritten by the Caesars Foundation provides MOWAA with invaluable information about the reality of senior hunger in the United States today and in the future. This increased understanding of the magnitude of the problem of senior hunger affords MOWAA’s Member programs a better understanding of the public and private resources that should be devoted to solving it. 

Beyond providing funding and vehicles, Caesars employees are an army of active and dedicated volunteers for Meals On Wheels programs in their local area.

"Especially in today's challenging economic environment it is important to Harrah's Entertainment that we maintain our support of organizations that improve the quality of life for seniors in our communities. I challenge my colleagues in corporate America to join Harrah's in the National Response to Senior Hunger program developed by the Meals On Wheels Association of America. Together we can eliminate senior hunger."

Jan Jones, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Communications
Harrah's Entertainment

The Causes, Consequences, and Future of Senior Hunger, a study sponsored by MOWAA and underwritten by Caesars, is a first class report…a national study, using up to the minute methodology and the latest available data which finally takes us beyond anecdote, and small and partial studies, to a reliable picture of [senior] hunger nationwide,” according to Dr. Eugene Smolensky, Professor of Public Policy
at the University of California at Berkeley and renowned economist who reviewed the study independently.

“March For Meals not only increased awareness for our program, but it also helped us recruit more volunteers and we raised four times more money in March than any other March since we started our program. MOWAA and the Caesars Foundation has been a tremendous blessing to us.”

Patty Clark, Executive Director
Meals on Wheels of Palo Pinto County, Inc.
Mineral Wells, TX