Meals on Wheels and Uber have joined forces to help strengthen the organization and help it reach its target of providing healthy meals to homebound senior citizens, veterans and disabled. The new partnership will extend for two years; Uber will donate $1 million as well as offer promotional codes for volunteers giving them free rides including volunteer support from Uber employees.
Meals on Wheels has over 5,000 local affiliate programs spread throughout the US and had over 2 million volunteers. Uber's help will contribute a lot to helping meals on wheels volunteers reach their destinations and help serve over 2.4 million citizens that it now reaches and more with the new injection of help from Uber.
Rachel Holt, Uber VP of US and Canada stated that one of the good things Uber has always done is think in local terms, using their local teams to be active on community issues and concerns. This new pairing with Meals on Wheels will enable many senior citizens the enjoyment of receiving their nourishment quickly and efficiently and with a smiling face. It makes a lot of sense to team up with such a steadfast national service.
The new partnership with Uber goes hand in hand with Meals on Wheels latest campaign "America, Let's Do Lunch." Which called upon citizens to take their lunch break time and help deliver food to those in need. Ellie Hollander Meals on Wheels CEO said that Uber's stepping up to the plate made the service a reality and was amazed how many Uber employees and drivers helped prepare and deliver meals and care packages. She was amazed at how fast the Uber network activated itself over 14 different markets in under one week.
UberEats is also in on the deal, and over 500 partner restaurants will donate $1 per order received through UberEats to Meals on Wheels during November 22, 2017.
Hollander stated that Uber's initiative is a great call for all other companies and communities to consider as well becoming an important model to emulate.
Uber has been going through some serious corporate re-imaging ever since founder Travis Kalanick stepped down from the CEO role back in July 2017. Uber has donated $1.2 million donations to Girls Who Code, and $5 million to domestic violence and sexual assault prevention organizations including Raliance, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Women of Color Network, Casa de Esperanza and others. This new partnership comes as part of an ongoing re-imaging and community outreach drive to help Uber recover from its bad image while also performing some really good work.