Amy Mallett, executive director of Hood River Valley Adult Center, has received the Local Service Provider Champion Award from the Administration for Community Living (ACL).
She hadn’t known she’d been nominated until she won.
Mallett said she’d received a link from a team member at ACL requesting that she watch the virtual award ceremony. So she did.
“There were two winners out of the U.S., and I was one of them,” she said. “It feels fantastic.”
Well, aside from the part where they’d spelled her last name wrong.
Regardless, Mallett said that the award is really a reflection of the hard work and dedication of the HRVAC team. “There’s no way I would have gotten this if not for them,” she said. “I really do believe we have the best team, have had the best team since I started (in 2016).”
She was going to share the news with the HRVAC board during their April meeting, but it was canceled due to snow — so it will wait for the May meeting.
ACL is a federal program that oversees all funding for Older Americans Act dollars that fund senior nutrition, health and caregiver support programs nationwide. As part of the 50th anniversary of the Older Americans Act Senior Nutrition Program, ACL took nominations to honor those who “celebrate, innovate and educate, nationally and locally.”
Mallett was nominated last October by Britta Willson on behalf of the Aging in the Gorge Alliance.
“I heard about the anniversary, and of them accepting nominations, and thought about Amy — she is extremely dedicated, very compassionate and very hardworking, but not very good at self-promotion,” Willson said. “She doesn’t promote herself or her work very well, so I feel like because of that, she doesn’t get the level of recognition that she deserves. Unless you know her well, you don’t know how much she does for the community.”
Willson said she didn’t tell Mallett about the nomination. “She had no idea, so she didn’t know she was going to win until she was watching the ceremony in real time,” she said. “It was a huge surprise.”
Mallett was the first winner recognized during the award ceremony (www.facebook.com/aclgov/videos). There are more than 5,000 local service providers in the ACL network who work directly with older adults to provide needed services and support, said Rhonda Schwartz, ACL regional administrator.
“Our winners today are being recognized for their commitment and contributions at a local service provider in their Senior Nutrition Network,” Schwartz said.
“In her role, Amy has worked tirelessly to eradicate hunger among her community’s most vulnerable seniors, help older adults stay in place and provide community approaches to education through her program,” she said. “Some of her most notable achievements include opening a grab and go lunch program, implementing a food truck to bring culturally appropriate meals to Latinx elders in the upper valley and providing daily hot meals to a local homeless shelter. Clients who participate in Amy’s program receive special holiday meals and gifts.
“Amy’s colleagues have called her the Queen of Fundraising. She has written many grants and overseen countless fundraising initiatives to improve programs and support her center,” Schwartz continued. “During the pandemic, she helped make physical improvements to the center to facilitate accessibility and ensure optimum health and safety for clients, volunteers and staff. Amy does all of this by coordinating a huge group of dedicated volunteers and employees who work together as a group to bring services to the senior community. All overseen by Amy, with love and dedication. It is with great pleasure that ACL presents Amy with this award.”
Mallett said the center is applying for a Community Development Block federal grant, which would help fund a $1.1 million new kitchen project; Hood River County Administrator Jeff Hecksel, Collection Impact Health Specialist Paul Lindberg (who writes grants for community organizations for Providence), and Mid–Columbia Economic Development District (MCEDD) have helped with project management.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” Mallett said. “It will serve our entire community for the foreseeable future — it will be used for seniors, for rentals for the community as a commercial kitchen, and as an emergency kitchen in the future, in case that needs to happen.”
The current kitchen is original to the building — and is “inadequate, as COVID showed us,” she added. “We didn’t miss a day when COVID started. We doubled the size of the program (serving meals). There was no way for us to socially distance in the kitchen, so that will be a part of this — the ability to keep staff safe in case of emergency.”
Despite the grant, $150,000 is still needed to complete the project. Community donations for the new kitchen can be made online at www.hrvac.org; click the “donate” tab.
For more information, contact Mallett at 541- 386-2060 or HRVACAMY@gorge.net.
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