It’s the end of another season on the big island on the big lake. Yesterday Isle Royale National Park staff returned from a fun and long season that included many visitors and plenty of work maintaining the park. While staff grabbed their gear off the Ranger III, Rock harbor Lodge unloaded food from their shelves and cold storage to donate to Copper Shores Meals on Wheels.
We don’t even know entirely what we’re getting. I mean, we’ve unloaded some boxes of trout. So we’ll include that as a main entree item, but there’s things like mayonnaise, you know, and even some cases of pop. We might take those to one of our meet and eat sites. So, it’ll get used in a variety of ways over the next few months. Our kitchen manager, Tribin, is excellent at finding ways to incorporate it. So, yeah, we’re excited to see what all is in there. – Kathleen Harter, Meals on Wheels Program Director, Copper Shores
Rock Harbor Lodge has donated the remaining ingredients from the restaurant to Meals on Wheels for at least the past four years. Meals Program Director Kathleen Harter says the high-quality ingredients make a huge difference for seniors.
So they’re packing up all their luggage and everything, but for us, we’re getting this great gift of this donated food. We have a whole trailer load, a truck load, and there’s still more coming off, so a lot. – Kathleen Harter, Meals on Wheels Program Director, Copper Shores
Meals Head Chef Tribin Holbrook adds he’ll be able to items like trout from the lodge and make delicious meals the seniors look forward all year.
And every year they donate 100 to 120 pounds of corned beef. And then we usually at this time of year, we’re getting cabbage from local farmers, and we combine the two and create a meal that the seniors love it. Like that’s one of their favorite meals of the year. – Tribin Holbrook, Kitchen Manager, Copper Shores Meals on Wheels
Holbrook says any items the program cannot use, such as food high in sodium, will go to another meals program in the area.
But some of this stuff can be given to some seniors and not the others. So, we’ll do just like we do every day. And we make special meals for the seniors that have dietary conditions. We make them their meal. And then we’ll use the stuff we were donated to us to ah give it to the seniors that don’t have those particular dietary problems. – Tribin Holbrook, Kitchen Manager, Copper Shores Meals on Wheels
This year’s delivery from the Rock Harbor Lodge filled two truck beds and a trailer in 2025. Seniors can expect items donated by the rock harbor lodge at isle royale national park incorporated into meals within the next week. Learn more about Copper Shores Meals on wheels online.
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