 In May of 2010, the Board of Directors held a visioning session. They were asked to define the ideal Meals on Wheels program. Fresh Meals on Wheels is the result. The Meals on Wheels board gathered for a special meeting, a visioning session to talk about the sort of the State of the Union of the program. We wanted to decide what was good about the program, what could be improved about the program, and all with a focus on how we can best serve our clientele. And in the beginning of my term, we had started talking about a visioning process. And we thought we wanted to really take a look at where Meals on Wheels was going to be in the next five years, ten years and beyond. And we were told to think big. So it was kind of interesting. The first process was over at the bank and we kind of went through these flow charts and spent a lot of time. Just trying to determine where we want to be and how we want to get there. And in that process was birthed not only the idea of providing our customers and our clients, our friends, more fresh food. But we also got to the point we thought about, well, we can do that better if we had a building. So as a conservative, I got very nervous. But we had an incredible board as we always do in Meals on Wheels. We're blessed with a very quality board and an outstanding staff. And we all put our heads together. And without going into a lot of detail, we start shopping for buildings. We talked about fundraising. And through Dennis Oll, who I succeeded as president, and John Rumley, who followed me, those two guys really did the work. They were out there with Kelly beating the bush, finding buildings, and finally came up with what we ultimately decided to purchase and close on. The board voted to essentially execute the plan that we had talked about in our visioning session a year previous. And an opportunity came up for a building that we could essentially transform into what we had envisioned, which was a better way to serve our customers and the community with meals that are going to be more healthy, prepared locally, and have a place to do it. And we cast a vote to purchase a building and start the process and to start a fundraising campaign that would help pay for this project. And it was exciting because it was everything we had talked about in our visioning session was starting to come to fruition. And it was something that we had spent a lot of time talking about, but now we could actually do something about it. It was a very interesting process as we began to decide on a location for our new facility. We considered bare ground and whether we should start from scratch with the building or whether we should acquire an existing building and remodel it. We looked at sites all over the community, from the north side to the south side of Sheboygan and spaces in between. One of the driving concerns for us was price. This is a program that wants to be very conscious of costs and do things in a very cost-sensitive manner. But we were also very sensitive to location because we wanted to find a location that would be amenable to all of our volunteers, not too far north, not too far south, a place where there was easy access in and out, a place where there was good parking. We located this parcel and had a very successful negotiation with the owners and resulted in buying the building at about half the price for which it was listed. The new location is so great. I have been delivering meals in the present site for quite a few years and you know, it's not always been easy to get in and out to where the Watson's Vending location is as far as all the volunteers arriving and leaving at the same time. Whereas the new location is so great, easy access, you can see it right there, how wonderful to have our own building with the name Fresh Meals on Meals on the side. So it's wonderful as far as just the location and the easy access and especially for the volunteers. When I go into the new building, even before it's completely finished, I get so excited to see that the volunteers will be able to see the food and see where it's being made and also to have a place to rest and to gather. It's always felt like we've been on a little borrowed territory, that it's not really the Meals on Meals program. We're sort of sneaking in, getting the food and then delivering it to people. Whereas now it's going to be like, oh, this is our place. We get to produce the food, make the food, and then get it out to the people who are receiving the Meals. Hi, welcome to the new Fresh Meals on Wheels. I'm Kelly Hine, Executive Director of Meals on Meals of Sheboygan County, and I'm grateful to have you visiting us. I'm in our new facility on South Taylor Drive in Sheboygan, and I'm actually standing in the Bruce and Carol Grover vestibule. This facility is an homage to Sheboygan County manufacturing ingenuity. As you enter the building, the first thing that you notice is the fork. It's part of our new logo, and it was created by Saunders Cone of K.P. Welding and the wonderful folks at Classic Coatings. On the floor you'll notice some customized mats produced locally as well. By Northwoods, Joel Kiefer of Northwoods mother was one of the original Meals on Wheels volunteers 42 years ago, and he wanted to be involved in our project. The most important part of the Meals on Wheels facilities are kitchen, of course. We're now cooking meals for our Meals on Wheels clients throughout Sheboygan County. One of the things that makes this facility different than other Meals on Wheels programs is that we are cooking and baking from scratch, so this is an extremely busy kitchen. The next most important part of this facility is that it's the volunteer pickup area. Our volunteers finally get to pick up meals the same place that our offices are. So when volunteers come to Meals on Wheels, they again enter the Bruce and Carol Grover vestibule, and then they go through the rotary automatic doors to our volunteer pickup area. Come on in, I'll show you. This bright, spacious area is where our volunteers now get to come and pick up meals. There's plenty of room for them. It's bright, it's airy. Not only do volunteers pick up the Meals here, but they have the opportunity to watch through the windows and see what's going on in the kitchen. They also have the opportunity to peek through the windows and see the volunteer coffee bar. Why don't I show that to you next? Joe Schmidt and sons very generously provided the Loretta Schmidt Coffee Bar, an area where our volunteers can sit and relax for a few moments before heading out on a route, or perhaps sit down after a route and share with their friends what they experienced that particular day's delivery. So far, the thing the volunteers seem to enjoy the most is watching what's going on in our kitchen. They can see through the windows exactly what's happening as our cooks are prepping and then packaging the meals. The Christopher Family Kitchen is a one-of-a-kind facility. As far as we can tell in the entire world, it is wonderful, and we're so grateful for the generosity that provided it. It's just interesting to peek through the windows and see what's happening. Right now, what you're watching is meals coming off of our packaging line and then going into the ovens. Those silver ovens are the carriers that volunteers are currently using as they deliver their routes. They keep the meals very hot, and they're concerned about meal temperatures, so that's important to us. You'll notice the meals on wheels staff peeking at the bottom of the meals as well as the top of the meals. That's because our meals are bar-coded on the bottom. We do a triple check. We have two bar-code scanners, and we also do a visual check of that barcode to make sure that we're getting the right food in the right tray for the right person. It's very important that we're being very vigilant, especially concerning special diets and food allergies. Each of the ovens holds the meals for one route. Each of our routes holds up to 14 meals. Our volunteers should be able to deliver those routes in less than an hour every day. Generally, we want volunteers to be able to deliver a meal in less than an hour so that they can get back to work if they are indeed leaving work to deliver these meals. One of the other new things that meals on wheels are our new carriers. Rather than using foil carriers as we've done in past, we now have biodegradable trays. These trays can be heated up in the oven or the microwave, and they have the benefit of having a clear cover so the volunteers and clients alike can see what's going on inside those trays, what's being served today. This is an entirely new procedure for us, obviously. We haven't had our own kitchen in past. We've been blessed with a number of vendors in our 42 years, but when our board decided it was time to go forward and have our own kitchen, we were able to bring a whole lot of people from the community into the planning process, and that's how we got this wonderful kitchen that we have right now. It's excellent. We've been cooking for all of our clients out of this facility for about four days now. It's been, indeed, been a learning experience. Some of our clients have been able to come in and visit the facility, which was kind of fun. This morning, I had a call from one of them who wanted me to make sure that I immediately went in to tell our chef that it was the best chicken she had had in years. It was a wonderful little kudo for us, but we move forward. Every day, there are a few new challenges, and we really do accept them as opportunities to change and grow. It's been a fun time here. Those of you with a good imagination can envision the beautiful garden that is going to exist behind the Meals on Wheels building. Obviously, right now, we have a wonderful pile of dirt, but come spring, we'll be breaking ground and putting in a gorgeous Meals on Wheels kitchen garden. We'll have quite a few raised beds so that we can grow produce, which can be used in our kitchen. We'll also have fruit trees and herbs, again, all things that can be brought into our kitchen and incorporated into our clients' meals. Foodies from throughout Wisconsin have toured this kitchen, and all have been so very excited by what they see. We tell every one of them that we have been tremendously blessed by the Christopher family. Without their generous half-million-dollar contribution, this kitchen never would have come to be. This kitchen is really a show place for Valrath equipment, including this massive mixer. We've been putting this to good use because we are, indeed, baking from scratch in this facility. This kitchen is state-of-the-art. Not only do we have wonderful ovens and combi ovens and steamers and tilt skillets and grills and induction stoves, we also have wonderful equipment that was made in Sheboygan County by the Keys Incorporated of Elkhart Lake. Keys is owned by the Zee family who have been delivering meals on wheels for many years. We're really grateful to them for their help. The local companies in town here in Sheboygan is Valrath Company, and they are a worldwide player in the food service equipment world. They go way beyond their claim to fame of smallwares. They also do some really great cooking equipment, and some of it is displayed right here. They're generous enough to donate these induction ranges. Induction range is a newer technology. It's really popular in Europe, and it's coming of age here in the United States. It operates completely different than any other electric type stove that you may find. These burners are actually electromagnets, and these are RIA stats. In the induction range, you use a particular type of cooking equipment that you put on there. It's got a carbon bottom encased in the stainless steel, and when you turn on the RIA stat, it creates an electromagnetic pulse. A very high frequency that excites the elements in the base, and so the cooking where is what actually heats up. If you have a pan boiling here, you can put your hands right here on the burner, and it won't burn you. It's all inside of the equipment. Very efficient. Heats up quickly, cools off. You don't have wasted heat. You don't have wasted energy. Some clean grits and Here we go. It's very generous to donate that. One of the comments made by the director was, you can't have shabbuygan meals on wheels and not be able to do brats. And things of that nature. So,ечь also donated this five-foot char broiler for us as well. This kitchen is designed to feed 1,000 people a day. Right now, we feed approximately 300 people each day. But again, this kitchen has been designed to feed 1,000 people a day, which equates to between 16 and 1,700 meals per day. This is our fresh food processing area. Our kitchen designer, Mike Tosca, can describe exactly what happens here. So one of my favorite aspects or features of this particular meals on wheels is this produce processing plant. I know it's small for a plant, but that's really kind of what it's technically called. But there is a lot of farm produce coming in here that's never had a chance to see anything but the inside of a truck. So it gets brought into this particular room, which is in the back corner of the facility. Produce comes in and it starts out over here. We have a lot of rolling tables so they can work with it very easily. But it first comes to this major sink. This is where all the sun leaves come off. This is where the mud gets washed off and everything in this big tank. But that's not really enough to make sure that the produce is sanitized properly. So this meals on wheels also has a state-of-the-art produce washing system. It's got its own refrigeration unit in there to maintain temperature and it uses a cleaner for the vegetables, which is basically grapefruit juice with a couple other additives in it. So it's also something you could actually eat. If you see on this washer, it also has a computer output. It monitors everything that goes on through the process of cleaning the vegetables. Once this produce is washed, like we've already mentioned, there's like 20 acres of potatoes coming in, 10 tons of carrots, where do you go with it all? Meals on wheels wants to freeze everything and then use it out throughout the year because harvest ends pretty soon here, it's November right now. So what we have is after everything gets washed, it has to get vacuum packed. There's a vacuum sealer sitting right over here to vacuum pack everything. But before it gets vacuum packed, it has to be absolutely frozen. And so in order to do that properly, we included a blast chiller in this facility. So it gets washed, it gets dried and then it goes into the blast chiller and is brought down to freezing temperatures very rapidly. So after it's been blast chilled and vacuum packed, this plant also has its own little walk-in freezer where we can pre-stage all of the frozen stuff, keep it frozen before the food finds its way into the main freezer in the rest of the kitchen. Our Meals on Wheels offices were made lovely by wonderful donation from the Mayline Company. So the furnishings that you see throughout this facility are indeed a gift from the Mayline Company. The other thing that's really quite lovely in this area is all the artwork. Betsy Michael, the widow of Dr. Jim Michael, provided many, many paintings in this space to make it much more beautiful. The one that we're looking at right now is entitled Square Meal, which is so appropriate. The light in this building is exceptional thanks to the Orion light tubes which also help with our electric bills, of course. They also showcase yet another Dr. Michael painting. They really are beautiful. I'm Steve Schmidt, Joe Schmidt, Sun's Construction Company, president of the company. And we were selected to be the general contractor for this project and started from day one on the project looking at the site, the building, and helping with that process also. And then to develop, working with the architect in establishing the floor plan, multiple floor plans, looking at different manufacturing equipment suppliers towards some facilities where this equipment was installed already. And looked at, too, because I also have a passion with environmental friendly buildings, building buildings, and with the board's recommendation to go to more green products. We used ICF product on the building, and we're just the whole thing with using local people, local manufacturers, keeping things within the area here. We work with Mayline, Kohler Company, Valworth Company, and many other local suppliers of the products and the equipment that went into the building. Mayline, which is a locally based office furniture manufacturer, we got involved in the project through my relationship with Kelly Hine, and we're so proud to be part of such a great, great project. And we teamed up with Joseph Schmidt and Sun's, Steve Schmidt, and I kind of rolled up our sleeves and helped design a number of offices in a large conference room and some of the common areas where some more kind of cafeteria-like product is going and put our list together, and our two companies put our kind of financial backing behind this thing, and we're able to bring in some, I think, some pretty nice furniture for this great new space. A lean kitchen design goes a lot further. It's a long, long list of things, more than we have time to talk about. But lean in and of itself, it looks at the process of getting something done, with always the focus on the end user, in this case would be the person at the home receiving the meal. And we look at every aspect of the process, the food coming in, how it gets handled when it's in the door, how it gets cooked, how it gets packaged, the whole thing. Mike and I call that method lean design methodology. It's not only a process where we create efficiencies in a kitchen. We look for effectiveness, efficiencies because it results in a lot of hamburgers being burned, and thousands of hamburgers being fried in an hour. But if they don't taste right and they don't come off the grill right or out of a microwave when they're reheated, you have problems. So lean design methodology really focuses to efficiencies. And in that design, it's got to be right for the employees. We look, I think Mike had mentioned here, we look at the ergonomics of a kitchen. So we look to the process, not the individual. Our kitchens, when we design them, should meet a standard for every employee that works there. Okay, and speaking, this particular project, it's a project that would be envied by many throughout the US. It is a, compared to a lot of projects we've done. This is a big project. Yet, the involvement of people in the local community are huge, and not only US players, but worldwide players. You have Kohler, you have Volrath, Joseph Schmidt, Altosham, Keyes that was involved here with the fabrication and the hoods. You've got Abacus Architects. I mean, the list kind of goes on and on, but you've got worldwide players right here in the community to get involved with a project that's just not your normal community project. This is something you could take any place throughout the US. So, the Sheboygan community is very fortunate to have those people involved with this project that brings that worldwide experience to a local environment. The biggest challenge was the amount of technology that had to go into the whole thing. Took a lot of planning up front, which we were able to do. Worked with a lot of different contractors from the kitchen to the HVAC, to the electrical, you name it. Everybody had to be involved. Everything that's involved in this building, now, like many new buildings, is all based around technology. Security systems, door locks, you name it. So, the biggest challenge was really putting that all together and having all the pieces fall in place. But it went very smooth. A lot of up front planning paid off in the long run and worked out really well. I guess what surprised me the most about this is the end result. It is way more than I anticipated. I walk in here and I see the view out the back of the building. I see the stainless steel and everything else in the kitchen area. It's all overwhelming. It's so much more than I anticipated. Understanding what we can do with the fresh vegetables and just how that whole process is going to work is just... I can't wait to see it in operation. I can't wait to see everything coming together. I can't wait to deliver meals outside of this building and running and just seeing everything working, the packaging of the meals. The other thing, the offices, it's just excellent, a great place for our people to work. And the fact that we're all in one place and we've got one campus and everything can be done, and if there's a problem, it can be resolved immediately. I think just the overall concept is just unbelievable. We're so proud of this. I was talking to Kelly just recently. It's been about a year and a half since we first came up with the thought that, Kelly, I think we should have our own building. Loan people, here we are. I think Kelly is still a little bit in shock about this, that she's got a kitchen and a cook and everything that she's got to deal with now. But our goal in all of this was to raise the quality of the meals, to take more charge of it so that we can handle that better ourselves, have more control over our destiny, but particularly to focus on the recipients of our meals to make sure that we're giving them the very, very best that we possibly can deliver to them. These are your parents and your neighbors and we want to treat them well. And thanks to the generosity of many of the people in this room. This is coming together very, very well. We appreciate that. If you haven't given, there's still time to give. We're still going to have to look out for that. But thank you for being here. Thank you for helping us with this beautiful facility. Kelly, do you have a couple of words? Very, very few words. But mostly what I need to say to everybody is thank you so much for getting us to this point. As Dennis said, it's been a year and a half and it's been an insane year and a half. The board decided it would be a good idea to buy a building. It's a good time to buy. We've considered a kitchen over the years. Let's buy a building and build a kitchen. Yay. So that would be fine. Just wonderful. But they also encourage me to dream. If you could do whatever you wanted to do, what would you do? This is the actual embodiment of my dream. This facility showcases the best of what you come to with manufacturing and ingenuity. It's all on display here. We have really been tremendously blessed by all of you. All of you are here because you've had some sort of substantial involvement in this project. Non-morsel than Mr. Christopher. Jay Christopher has been incredibly kind, wheels on wheels, and to me, as we've gone through this process and performing it. He's actually the first person who said about two years ago, hey, you want a kitchen? He said, no, I don't want a kitchen. I really don't want a kitchen. Let's start with a truck. That was a big enough deal. But he has been such a stalwart supporter of all he's done. He's had his hand on the design of this project, giving wonderful feedback. So extremely grateful to him and his wonderful family. Thank you so much, Jay, for making this possible. This kitchen is tremendous. Thank you. All right. Congratulations to the board, to Kelly, to the community. This is just a great program for the community that's going to be out there for years and years to come. I guess it's a beautiful thing. You think about, I'm at that age now where I'm starting to think, boy, how am I going to take care of myself? And what kind of meals am I going to be able to cook? And to think that I could reach out to this organization and have meals to get me through the week and the week, and it's just a great feeling. So I really congratulate the entire Chewboygan County community for what they've been able to accomplish. And I know that that little amount that we need to arrange yet will be coming into the doors very quickly and no debt, and we'll be off and running. OK? Now it's official. We actually went a few things in here, but now it's official. Do you need a haircut? Or I can take you down to the shrubs. OK, great. Many times on projects at last minute things come up that I think I was contacted by Kelly regarding the coffee bar that the volunteer that was going to put this together wasn't able to do this. And I said, I'd love to take care of it. I got so involved in this project that it's one of those projects that you really get excited about. So we had our people in the shop, John Tuma, who was a very skilled craftsman, came up with a mutual concept for it and built what you see here today, which is going to be hopefully enjoyed by many visitors and volunteers that are going to be coming into the Meals on Wheels site here. My name is Betsy Jones-Michael. I'm standing in the remarkable new building of Meals on Wheels in Chewboygan, Wisconsin. It has been my pleasure to donate some of my late husband, James-Michael's, paintings for the opening of this new wonderful facility and their colorful walls. Our community is proud to be a provider of good food in this new era for Meals on Wheels.