Acting privately, Sedona City Councilwoman Nancy Scagnelli is asking the community to help her raise $10,000 to provide 1,200 lunches for homebound seniors.
On May 22, council learned March revenues were down 20 percent and decided to cut back funding to outside agencies in fiscal year 2009-10 budget, including cutting $7,500 from Sedona Community Center’s Meals on Wheels program.
Acting privately, Sedona City Councilwoman Nancy Scagnelli is asking the community to help her raise $10,000 to provide 1,200 lunches for homebound seniors.
On May 22, council learned March revenues were down 20 percent and decided to cut back funding to outside agencies in fiscal year 2009-10 budget, including cutting $7,500 from Sedona Community Center’s Meals on Wheels program.
Scagnelli announced that day she would write a $100 check for MOW and would try to find 74 other people to do the same, making up for the $7,500 cut from the city’s subsidies.
“When the March numbers came in so low, I thought now we have to cut everything, but I’m going to make this challenge,” Scagnelli said. She quickly bumped up her goal to $10,000.
On May 26, Sedona resident Jerry Frey presented council with a $1,000 check for Scagnelli’s pledge. When Susan Barrington, executive director of the center, took the challenge back to SCC, $1,100 was donated in one day by lunch patrons.
“It’s Sedonans helping other Sedonans,” Scagnelli said. “It makes sense. It’s not something you have to think about.”
According to Barrington, MOW serves 60 homebound seniors daily with warm, nutritious lunches, reaching over 130 seniors in 2008.
“The need is swelling,” Barrington said. “Our numbers have expanded 60 percent since 2006.”
MOW serves a “fiercely independent and proud” generation, she said, making it difficult for them to ask for help.
“But the need is there,” she said, “and it is growing.”
At $8 per meal, if the community raises $10,000, it would provide for 1,200 hot lunches to be delivered, Barrington said.
To spread the word, Scagnelli and Councilwoman Pud Colquitt sent out e-mails to everyone in their address books. On May 29, Scagnelli turned in $1,500 that she’d already collected and a lot of people are mailing in checks, she said.
Of the nonprofits seeing cuts in city funding, Scagnelli chose to help SCC because it was the most painful cut, she said.
“My legally blind grandmother got it the last 10 years of her life,” Scagnelli said. “It’s a great program that’s needed in every town.”
It’s also a tax credit that doesn’t take away from school tax credit, she said. On state taxes, there is a dollar for dollar credit off what you owe, up to $200 for individuals and $400 for married couples.
There is no cost to fundraising, so everything raised goes directly to MOW, Scagnelli said.
“This community used to really bond together and get things done and we’ve lost that,” she said. “I just figured this was something most people wouldn’t have to think about — whether or not they’re willing to donate.”
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail
aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
