Our Mission

Expand our community support through Meals.

1

We respect the autonomy and mutual aid of voluntary and community organizations, and aiming for developing food environment to all generations by supporting them.

2

We contribute to the development of prosperous community welfare society, through improving community welfare and health, by promoting network of industry-government-academia-citizen with cross-sectional and academic perspective.

About Us

Meals on Wheels Japan (formerly known as Meals for the Aged Liaison Committee) was established as a liaison organization, following the Japan-Australia Symposium (1985) by groups running meal delivery services and luncheon clubs for elderly living alone.

Origin of our Logo

The Meals on Wheels logo is based on the logo of the Meals on Wheels South Australian Association in Australia, a leading provider of volunteer food aid services. It is well known meal delivery service indicates “Meals on Wheels” so we used a wheel as the motif for the design. The logo for Meals on Wheels Japan uses a dark blue color to represent harmony and cooperation.

Board Members

President	Atsuko Ishida, Vice president, NPO MINORI
Director	Hideko Kenmochi, President, Promoting meal service Koufu association
Executive Director	Hiroyuki Shimizu, Professor, Department of Sociology, Chiba University
Director	Kouji Sumida, Chief of Secretariat, NPO Feliz Monte
Director	Fukuko Shimizu, President, NPO AKANE group
Director	Shouta Tanaka, Full-time lecturer, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of RYUKYUS
Executive Director	Katsuo Naito, Professor, College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University
CEO	Kakuji Hirano, President, Social Welfare Corporation FUKINOTOH
Auditor	Akira Tsurusawa, TsurusawaAkira Tax Accountant Office （Term of office: 2021-2024）
Auditor	Tomohito Nakajima, Professor, Business Department, Sannno University （Term of office: 2021-2024）

Location and Hours

Our Network

Food support activity provides diverse values to community, such as “Nutrition” “Food Education” “Communication” “giving people their roles”. Before anything else "To eat is to live." That is why we think eating is a very important aspect of life and is also indispensable to connect with people. Making community with meals will be one of the solutions of social problems, caused by loneliness, poverty and fragmentation, we think.
We have many partners working at the forefront of regions in all over Japan, and they are about two-thousand groups. Thinking and connecting with each other through foods in community has helped us to identify new issues and create new services that are needed.
We, Meals on Wheels, have been expanding our community through meals and foods throughout Japan with supporting local start-ups and sustainable operations based on variable groups’ experiences.
To solve regional issues, we are cooperating not only with support activities, also starting to connect with various associations like ministries, local governments, councils, companies, intermediary organizations, and so on.

With Overseas

We are cooperating with Meals on Wheels South Australia. Meals on Wheels is the program that provide meals to people who are feeling hard to prepare by themselves and it is said started from 1940’s in UK. Australia is a leading country of Meals on Wheels, and MoWSA provides 4,000 meals in a day from 83 branches to the elderly who are in need of food. This work is supported by about 6,500 volunteers. (Data in 2021)

MoW South Australia and MoW Japan

It all began in 1983, when a MoW SA volunteer visited Japan and made a field trip a luncheon club for the elderly by "Association for Meals for the Aged Fukinotoh". After that in 1985, the necessity of nation-wide liaison association for activity groups were came up in symposium of MowSA and Fukinotoh, This discussion led the establishment of Meals on Wheels Japan in the future. We learned lots of things such as operating skills and the way of thinking as public service, from MoWSA which operating systematically on a large scale of food delivery service by volunteers.

An amicable agreement

Throughout visiting each other and the symposium experiences, in 2001, we exchanged memorandum of understanding of an amicable agreement in the presence of Minister of Human Services. Despite different cultural backgrounds, we will continue to work together with the common goal of supporting community with foods and the spirit of international cooperation.

Main Interactive events until today

2002 Ministry of Health and Welfare project on "Research and study on the introduction of the South Australian MOW system to encourage mutual assistance among the elderly"
2004　Speech at MOWSA 50th anniversary celebrations
2015 Attendance at the Australian MoW Congress and MOWSA inspection tour
2017 MOWSA CEO visits Japan to observe "Fukinoto" activities in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo
2021　On-line meeting on the situation of Covid disaster

Asking for Donations

We, Meals on Wheels, are running service of expanding community through meals where people feel belong to, and it is not-for-profit activity. It’s about neither selling products nor receiving compensation from beneficiaries by providing services.

Although we are carrying the services by dormant deposit, private foundation grants, or subsidy from national and local government, our voluntary work on those who are excluded from the system requires more and more funds.
Most voluntary and community organizations those who are our members, has small service scale and vulnerable management base. We do use your donations with severity, for promoting to make supporting system of management base and policy proposal campaign.

How you can donate to us:

You can donate via donation payment website “Congrant” by credit card.
It is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support.