Meals on Wheels P.E.I. will be expanding its reach across the Island with a new chapter in Tignish, with the hope that it’s up and running by early April.

The group delivers fresh, hot meals — mainly to seniors, people with disabilities, and others who face physical barriers to meal access.

John Handrahan, who is helping set up the new chapter, said a group on the western part of the Island recognized monthly meals it put on was attracting between 250 and 300 people each time.

“We saw the need to reach out to these people more often than once a month,” said Handrahan.

The effort to set up the Tignish chapter includes Knights of Columbus of P.E.I. members and staff from the Tignish co-op.

Meals on Wheels P.E.I. has about a dozen chapters in the province, including other rural areas like Alberton, O’Leary and Souris.

Haley Zavo, the organization’s executive director, said a fairly large number of people from the Tignish area have expressed they would benefit from the service.

“The need is no surprise to me … That’s something that we see across the province, especially in rural areas,” Zavo said.

“I think it’s going to meet the needs for a lot of folks — a lot of seniors, a lot of people with disabilities and also other folks who are facing physical barriers to access.”

Handrahan said the current plan is for deliveries to go as far as 10 to 15 kilometres outside of Tignish, but the precise distance will be affected by how much demand there is for the service and how many drivers they have.

“We might be able to go further if we have enough drivers,” he said.

Islanders wanting to volunteer for the new chapter or sign up for meals can find the group on Facebook, or call 211.