On Thursday, April 12, Mama’s kitchen delivered its 4 millionth meal. County Board of Supervisors chair Ron Roberts made the delivery.

“Mama’s Kitchen is truly making a difference in our community,” Roberts said. “Through their extraordinary work, people from all walks of life – all of whom are living with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses – are getting the nutrition they need to stay as healthy as possible. On behalf of a grateful community, I want to thank Mama’s Kitchen for all that they’ve done.”

The Mama’s Kitchen organization has been providing healthy meals for people with HIV/AIDS since 1990. Since its inception, the organization has branched out and created new programs serving new clients. In 1997, it started its grocery bag program, which delivers a bag of groceries to families with children who are HIV positive. Mama’s Kitchen also instated the Children’s Nutritional Health Program, which provides cooked meals for the children of their clients who are too sick to cook for their own children.

Recently, Mama’s Kitchen has expanded its mandate even further with the Critical Illness Nutrition Program. “It’s pretty exciting for the organization,” said Mama’s Kitchen director of development Melinda Balkom. “Last year, we expanded our mission to include people with critical illnesses under the age of 60, which includes people with cancer, heart disease and other conditions who aren’t able to prepare their own meals.”

Home delivery of prepared meals to HIV/AIDS patients remains the mainstay of the organization, and the need for services has continued to grow.

“Mama’s kitchen started in 1990, so we’re going into our 17th year,” Balkom said. “Last year, we served 324,000 meals, which includes our hot meals, our pantry and our grocery bag program.”

Monday through Friday, the volunteers at Mama’s Kitchen prepare three nutritious meals for their clients. The meals are delivered each weekday afternoon and consist of dinner and the next day’s breakfast and lunch. Fridays are the biggest delivery days consisting of meals for Friday’s dinner through Monday’s lunch.

Preparing meals for so many people every day is a complicated process, but the 850 volunteers and 11 employees at Mama’s kitchen make it appear seamless. Each morning volunteers cook, prepare, package and bag meals for hundreds of clients.

“The number varies by day because if a client can’t be home at the delivery time, because they’re at a doctor’s appointment or something, they will call and cancel their delivery,” said Executive Chef Anne Garger. “Today we’re making meals for 280 people, which at three meals each works out to 840 meals.”

Garger has been with Mama’s Kitchen for more than 10 years, and she said has a sense of accomplishment mixed with sadness at hitting the milestone. “I was here when we delivered the 1 millionth meal and I’ve been here ever since,” Garger said. “It’s a strange feeling because I’m happy I’ve been able to provide 4 million meals, but I’m sad because we have had to provide 4 million meals.”

Volunteers collecting food for Mama’s Kitchen are a common weekend sight at grocery stores like Ralphs, and Balkom estimates that the food drives are responsible for raising $15,000 worth of food per year, which is an important accomplishment. But that is only a drop in the bucket of the organization’s more than $2 million operating budget.

“The hardest thing of course is money. I order all the food, not only for the hot meal program, but for the pantry and all the other programs,” Garger said. “People sometimes think ‘if I make a donation, they’re going to be using it for other things than the program,’ but look around, there’s not a lot of overhead in this operation. We always need drivers and volunteers, but we can’t do it without donations.”

Balkom echoed Garger’s sentiments, saying that even if food donations were increased 100-fold, there would still be a need for more money.

“Our greatest need is actually money. We have to buy all of our hot meals because we have to have certain things to make meals, so we can’t depend on donations,” Balkom said.