• Wallace Drive

  • Noosaville

  • Queensland

  • 4566

  • Phone:07 54497659

  • email: tnmow@bigpond.com

About Meals on Wheels

"MOW originated in Great Britain during WWII assisting frail older people who wanted to stay in their own homes, but who needed help to do so.
In Australia, MOW started in 1952 in South Melbourne. A lady on a tricycle delivered the meals. When it became too much for her, the Red Cross took over. Now nearly 60 years later, MOW over the course of a year delivers over 14.8million meals from 740 outlets, to approximately 53000 people. These meals are delivered by approximately 78,700 volunteers.

In Tewantin, we commenced operations in May 1975 in a small kitchen off St James Church Hall, Noosaville, where in the first year they cooked and delivered 1000 meals, at a cost of $1 per meal. They only operated 3 times a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday, operating 2 runs, one north and one south! Later they moved to a small cottage in Ernest Street, Tewantin until council informed them they would have to moved, in 1992.

The move to our current premises in Wallace Park was in 1993. Money for this was raised in the community by the sale of "bricks" to the community, the Noosa Council offered the land. The Lions Club, Rotary Clubs and the Tewantin-Noosa and Noosa Heads Bowls Clubs all agreed to make the building of the new kitchen their project for the year.

SO many suppliers and trades people helped in this project, the bricks supplied from the brickworks in Bundaberg at no charge, all the paint was donated. The building was put up in three weekends all with volunteer labour, from the slab being laid, bricks laid and all painted! An honour board of all the fantastic organizations and companies is in the current kitchen. It was a huge achievement!

We operate 5 days a week, supplying meals for 7 days - we send out frozen meals for the weekends and public holidays.

This last financial year we delivered 33,343 meals, a huge increase. We now do 7 runs which include Marcus Beach to Sunrise Road, to Cooroibah, Noosa Heads, Tewantin, Noosaville, Parklands and Tinbeerwah, in those runs we include the retirement villages of Riverlands, Laguna, Noosa Waters and Hibiscus. We also supply lunches to the Noosa Day Respite Centre Monday to Friday.

The reasons behind the huge increase in meal numbers, are in a large part, due the past and present governments encouraging the "older" Australian to stay in their homes longer. Not always, the desire of the "older" Australian, but the restrictions on entry to Aged Care Facilities doesn't leave them much choice in the matter, never mind the availability of beds, in the local Aged Care Facilities