WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS BELOW
Meals on Wheels delivers more than dinner
By Gale Horton Gay
Photos by Gale Horton Gay
Carlos Washington didn’t intend to spend his Saturday jumping in and out of his car in the heat making deliveries, but when he saw his sister rising early and preparing to spend her day volunteering, that’s exactly what he did.
 Washington along with his sister Darcel Jones delivered frozen meals to 12 senior citizens in the West End and Oakland City communities of Atlanta, but before driving there they on July 18 traveled from their home in East Point to Senior Connections pickup point for the Meals on Wheels program in Decatur.
“I woke up and saw her getting ready to go and just decided to give back for a change,” said Washington. “I am going to be old one day too and maybe somebody will bring me a meal.”
Meals on Wheels started in 1973 through the DeKalb County Council on Aging (now Senior Connections) serving just DeKalb. Over the years, they’ve expanded their service area and programs, but Meals on Wheels remains “the heart of what we do,” according to Robin Kirby, chief marketing officer for Senior Connections.
In addition to the hot meals delivered to the homes of senior citizens on weekdays, Senior Connections also provides in-home care, home repair and the agency manages six senior centers.
“Everything that we do is to help people stay in their homes. They want to stay independent, stay in the home. That’s where their memories are,” she said.
Meals on Wheels is available to persons age 60 and older who are low income or need physical assistance. According to Kirby, clients are qualified through Medicaid or a county office on senior affairs. Meals are provided free to seniors who qualify, and some other clients pay for their meals.
Weekday meals are distributed at the Life Enrichment Center on McConnell Drive in Atlanta and then a cadre of volunteers deliver them between 10:30 a.m. and noon to the seniors’ homes. Meals are also prepared for the six senior centers that Senior Connections manages. Some 2,000 meals a day are prepared. Meal on Wheels serves 500 seniors mostly in DeKalb but a few also in Atlanta, Gwinnett and Cobb counties as well as Macon, where local volunteer handle the deliveries.
There are about 200 volunteers.
How has the program been affected by economic downturn’
“We definitely do have folks interested in volunteering, but they don’t realize they will need to use their own vehicle or they can’t afford to spend their own money on gas,” said Kirby. Some volunteers are cutting back on their hours.
 To combat this challenge, the program began offering meal delivery on Saturdays in mid-July as a way to attract volunteers who work or are otherwise obligated Monday through Friday but have time on Saturday mornings.
First-time volunteers Lauren and Dan Bacon said the weekend works perfectly for them.
“We have been calling to volunteer for some time, but we needed something on the weekend,” said Lauren Bacon, who recalled that her mother once was a Meals on Wheels client and that “it made a huge difference for her.”
“We have been trying to sign up neighbors too,” said Dan Bacon as their van was packed with the small brown boxes.
They estimated that the nine routes located in the Glenwood area they were given would take about an hour to complete.
The meals delivered on Saturdays are prepared at the program’s central kitchen in Chamblee, but unlike the Monday through Friday meals, which are delivered hot, these are frozen. Some of the boxes bear stickers indicating that the meals are vegetarian contain pork or for a diabetic.
Debra Furtado, chief executive officer of Senior Connections, kept watch over the first Saturday effort, along with staffers who picked up the slack to deliver the remainder of the meals after the volunteers had arrived and departed. Three volunteers showed up on the first Saturday, four on the second Saturday.
“So far it’s going OK. We still need more volunteers,” she said.
For more information on Meals on Wheels, go to www.srconn.org.
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