Each day, the Wesley Life Meals on Wheels building on University Avenue is providing for the community, whether that be delivering meals, growing produce on their hydroponic farm or serving up a plate of margarita pizza at their fine dining restaurant, Hugo’s. In 2024, the Des Moines Meals on Wheels served 428,116 meals, breaking the previous record of food delivered by the DSM location.

Shannon Draayer, the executive director of health and well-being for Wesley Life, attributed their success to the non-profit’s move to Drake University’s old College of Education building. According to Draayer, nearly 2,000 home-delivery meals come out of the building nearly every day.

Walking into the building’s front doors, visitors will immediately see the kitchen where each of the meals is prepared. Every single meal includes protein and produce.

A typical dish includes a piece of bread and mixed vegetables, along with a scrambled egg, mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese. Draayer said these meals would not be possible without the addition of the hydroponic farm located in their basement.

Wesley Life partnered with Meals on Wheels to create Wesley Life Meals on Wheels, including the hydroponic farm where the majority of the greens go to Meals on Wheels.

“When I came, they were getting between, I’d say, about 40 pounds a week. Now it’s gotten up to almost 80 pounds a week. So they’re definitely enjoying the quality and quantity,” said Amanda Kanehl, the lead gardener at Wesley Life.

Wesley Life’s hydroponic farm uses a mix of a nutrient film technique with setting rafts. The technique helps nutrient waters flow over the roots, providing a constant supply of nutrients and oxygen, while the setting rafts help the roots be submerged in water.

“Each tower is separate, but each row is made up of towers and connected to one reservoir,” Kanehl said. “Below, gray tanks hold all of the reverse osmosis water that we use and all the fertilizers and whatnot to be dosed, and those get pumped up to the individual towers.”

This water then goes down one leg of the tower and zigzags through their top and bottom shelves until the water goes into the drain and back into the reservoir, meaning that the flow is constantly running.

Because the hydroponic farm is growing so much, Wesley Life welcomes volunteers. Currently, Meals on Wheels partners with Drake University’s online volunteering platform, DUGood, to provide access for students to sign up for a shift with Wesley Life.

Students can sign up for three different kinds of volunteer opportunities with Wesley Life Meals on Wheels: callers to assist with their friendly caller program, meal deliveries and the hydroponic farm.

“When you volunteer in the garden, you see how significant that operation is,” said Mallary Allen, the director of community-engaged learning at Drake. “Every day, you’ve got so many meals that are going out, and it’s just really continuous. I think that students can see that it’s got to be an impactful experience to know that every day, all of this is going to be harvested all over again.”

Sophomore Brad Padavic, a student volunteer from Drake University, enjoys spending time at the hydroponic farm. He says it is important to help out the hydroponic farm, especially when their produce feeds the Des Moines community.

“Not only [is it] a very unique volunteer opportunity in regards to the work you’re doing, but it is a very serious and important job,” Padavic said. “[Helping] people who are unable to serve themselves with ease, and also the fact that the organization takes it so seriously, makes it a really meaningful experience.”

Meals on Wheels is not the only place that sources food from the hydroponic farm. Hugo’s, a fine dining restaurant that is attached to the Wesley Life building, also utilizes ingredients from the farm in its rotating meals. Head Chef Lynn Pritchard was initially shocked at the idea of opening a restaurant right next to Meals on Wheels.

“Obviously, [the] kitchen was transformed from an old location to this property and really brought it into the 21st century,” Pritchard said. “The gentrification of their commercial kitchen was obviously the biggest piece of the puzzle, but they wanted a restaurant operator that, I guess, wanted to bring a little bit more gravitas to their mission and vision.”

Hugo’s is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day except Sunday and Monday. According to Pritchard, patrons order their woodfire pizza the most and enjoy a couple of cocktails during the restaurant’s happy hours from 3-6 p.m.

In terms of the future, Wesley Life is hoping to expand its meal palette to be more inclusive of other cultures, in addition to improving their reach in Iowa. Draayer said when they first opened, their goal was to triple their meal production from 1,000 meals to 3,000 and they are now at 2,000. By reaching their goal, they will be able to meet the demand needed by the community, especially those who are isolated.

“Having those fresh greens and vegetables are so important. I’ll never forget one of the gentlemen I delivered to a couple of years ago, Gary…I asked Gary, ‘What do you think of the meals?’[and] he said, ‘This is the only reason I eat any vegetables,” Draayer said. “I just thought that was really what we spoke to, creating meals that’s designed by dieticians.”