Executive Summary

The Backgrounder begins by briefly touching on the origin of Meals on Wheels which
began in Great Britain during World War II. It was first introduced to the United States following
the war in Pennsylvania. The Meals on Wheels Association of America was officially established
in 1974.
The 2nd part goes on to elaborate on the issue of senior independence the Greater
Lafayette area. The Baby Boomer generation reaching the latter half of their lives at this point in
time is the primary cause for the prevalence of the problem in our society. This section then goes
on to talk about the services and benefits that Meals on Wheels provides for their groups of
publics. Some services elaborated on in this section are the meal preparation and delivery
process, the events occurring in March for their annual March for Meals festivities and their
Animeals program for clients pets.
The 3rd section goes on to talk about the communication problems that the local branch of
the Meals on Wheels organization is currently struggling with. There are three main issues that
are preventing substantial response from their publics:

Lack of resources to gain and maintain appropriate media to generate awareness

Inability to gear marketing tools toward specific audiences that Meals on Wheels of

Tippecanoe County wants to target

Lack of funding

All of these issues cause one major problem: insufficient marketing and promotion of services
and benefits.
There are 3 objectives that should be implemented in order to improve the current state of
their relationships with their publics:
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Raise awareness of the problem that Meals on Wheels aims so high to resolve
Create awareness of the services offered by Meals on Wheels that help to fix the

problem
Expand the Meals on Wheels diaspora