Meal deliveries to persist when nonprofit closes

After serving the Newport-Mesa community for almost 40 years, Friends in Service to Humanity has announced that it will be closing at the end of its current fiscal year, though the 90 clients served by its Mobile Meals program will continue to be supported through the Costa Mesa and Oasis senior centers.

On Wednesday the nonprofit sent an e-mail to the OC Partnership, a referral organization for various programs, to officially notify the partnership that Friends in Service will close its doors.

Founded in 1968 by Costa Mesa resident Shirley Watts, the nonprofit aimed to prevent hunger and homelessness in the community while promoting self-sufficiency. Six years later, organizers initiated the Mobile Meals program, collaborating with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian to deliver two daily meals to homebound people in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

But over the last few years, the organization experienced a lull in volunteers, donations and funding, and when former executive director Dana Timmermans left in July to pursue other professional ambitions, Friends in Service to Humanity was forced to abandon its homelessness-prevention programs and grocery delivery services in order to keep the meal delivery program afloat.

At that time, the organization also closed its food storage warehouse and moved from a rented space to a cubicle in the Share Our Selves office.

“Over the course of the last couple of years, the Mobile Meals program experienced significant financial problems and as a result, the board looked for a way to save it,” said board member Nancy Jackson. “We looked out in the world and found two outstanding programs already covering our community.”

Operating through the Costa Mesa Senior Center, Feedback Foundation will take up Friends in Service to Humanity’s 65 Costa Mesa clients over the course of the next three weeks, and South County Senior Services, working out of Oasis, will assume the 25 Newport Beach clients progressively before the end of May, each program offering three daily meals Monday through Friday.

By June 30, Friends in Service to Humanity will be completely dissolved, said board member Mike Stieger.

“Our focus is really helping the people we serve meals to, and these two groups have substantial programs up and running with case workers, a strong volunteer base and a strong financial base,” he said. “It’s fantastic that our program has endured this long, and it will continue to do so in a more efficient and more effective manner through two other organizations.”

Though she is confident in the performance of the organization’s board of directors and dedicated volunteers, Watts — who worked with the organization continually from its founding to 2000 — said the group did not actively market itself or hold many fundraising events in recent years, which may have contributed to its decline.

“For a while, there wasn’t any marketing there and very few fundraising type things,” she said. “I think everybody did every single thing they could. It was just a different way the board went.”

Friends in Service to Humanity has already notified other organizations of its closure, and its volunteers have completed preliminary orientations for the new programs and plan to continue delivery to their usual routes.

Because the organization serves about 10 clients who are homebound, under the age of 60 and cannot pay for the services themselves, the Department of Community Medicine at Hoag Hospital will provide the funding to continue their meal delivery through the two new programs.

Watts is confident that despite the organization’s closing, the needs of the community will continue to be met by the many nonprofits that have developed to provide the services that Friends in Service to Humanity aimed to meet at its founding.

“We started at a time when other people were not offering these services and we’ve had a good, long run,” Watts said. “I’m sad to see FISH go, but there are other agencies taking care of those needs now.”

Volunteers interested in participating in the meal-delivery programs should contact Bernice Barajas at Oasis Senior Center at (949) 718-1820 or Sue Thome at Costa Mesa Senior Center at (949) 631-8171.