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# Meals on Wheels parks it on Michigan Avenue
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/meals-on-wheels-parks-it-on-michigan-avenue/
- Published: 2005-11-15T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T08:09:58.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Downtown, #archive-import

*Meals on Wheels looking for contributions to offset its costs*

*By JASMIN PERSCH Special to the Daily Press*

After months of scouting for a new location, Meals on Wheels West — a nonprofit organization that delivers affordable meals to the elderly and homebound — has found a place and will uproot before the month’s end.

Meals on Wheels director Rosemary Regalbuto said the organization will relocate from the First Christian Church in downtown Santa Monica to the African Methodist Episcopal Church By the Sea on Michigan Avenue by Nov. 25.

Meals on Wheels in April received notice from the First Christian Church to move out because the church was sold. The organization’s rent doubled to $3,000 in June, putting financial strain on it and forcing a $1 increase on meals, Regalbuto said. Ever since, the organization has been searching for a new home.

However, the First Christian Church will remain on the property, located at Sixth Street and Arizona Avenue for another year, based on a deal that church officials worked out with the new owner, said Bill Miles, the church’s pastor.

“We have no says-so (over Meals on Wheels staying in the church),” Miles said.

Despite concerns about costly tenant repairs, Meals on Wheels secured a 20-year lease with the AME Church last month and will pay $1,900 per month in rent, she said.

“We’re fixing it up,” she said. “The painters are done Thursday and the carpet is coming in Friday.”

To help offset the costs, the organization received $15,000 from the Rotary Foundation and Regalbuto said she’s writing grant applications to various organizations, including a proposal to the City Council.

The organization was able to get reduced rates from companies they’ve hired to fix up the place and Regalbuto and her assistant, Kevin McNulty, ripped the old carpet out themselves to save $550.

“I have money in reserves, but don’t like to use it (unless there’s an emergency)... I guess this is an emergency,” she said. “I raise money; I don’t spend money.”

Now that the move is certain, Meals on Wheels is making maps to help people, especially volunteers, find their new home that dead ends between two streets, she said.

Volunteers who drive their own cars and pay their own gas had problems finding parking around the First Christian Church and many of them received parking tickets.

“A lot of them (the volunteers) are glad we finally found a place,” Regalbuto said. “Hopefully, it won’t be too difficult for the no-parking issue.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 15, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/111505.pdf?ref=smdp.com)