Emporia’s Friendship Meals will be cooking out of its new site starting Monday and an open house will kick off the event.
Emporia’s Friendship Meals, which previously transported meals out of Ottawa through the North Central Area Agency on Aging, has been distributing meals out of the Heritage Center on Whittier Street. The Friendship Meals program recently acquired the former Emporia Rehabilitation building, 221 W. Logan Ave., to bring the meal perparation back to Lyon County.
Bringing the cooking back to Lyon County will allow the food to be more fresh, said Terry Brooks, nutrition coordinator of Friendship Meals.
“I think it’s important for the meals to be cooked in Emporia because these people are going to get fresher meals,” Brooks said in a previous Gazette article. “They are going to be hotter.”
An open house will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday at the new cook site, Brooks said. The public is invited to see the new kitchen.
The agency is still looking for money to buy the building, which will cost $200,000. To donate, a fund has been set up at ESB Financial, 801 Merchant St. and 12th Avenue and Industrial Road. Checks should be made payable to the Friendship Meals Project.