Menu
Meals on Wheels more than just a hot meal
Three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Patty Jones, the senior nutrition cook for Central District Health, cooks up 50 extra meals at the Mountain Home Senior Center.
She packs them in tinfoil and hands a dozen or so to Weda Dooley, one of ten volunteers she has who head out to deliver them to the homes of area senior citizens who spend much of their time homebound.
Working under contract with the Area III Agency on Aging, Jones, Dooley and the other volunteers, are what makes the Meals on Wheels program work.
"Our drivers, like Weda, are strictly volunteers," Jones said. "And to be honest, I could use a couple more.
"For a lot of the people they deliver to, this (the volunteer) is the only person they see during the week."
For Dooley, it's a labor of love. Like many of the other volunteer drivers, the people she visits have become friends. She knows their habits and routines, their medical problems, their dogs, their children and grandchildren.
She knows what they like and don't like. "This one wants juice," not the milk, she says, as she "personalizes" each meal she delivers. Usually, she adds a touch of her own as well, some cookies or tarts, something she's put together herself to add to the prepared meal packages Jones puts together. "I always take a goody for my Friday deliveries," she said, noting that she usually spends her Thursdays baking cookies or preparing some "extra" snack for her clients.
Each meal must meet a basic nutrition criteria. For some of Dooley's "clients" along her route -- which takes her all over town -- it's not just that day's hot meal that she delivers. She also drops off frozen dinners prepared by Jones and her staff that make sure each of ther clients has an easy to prepare meal for each day of the week. If the client has special dietary needs, the meals can be modified to meet those needs.
At some stops, her clients aren't home, or don't come to the door. She leaves the meals at agreed upon places inside or outside of the house. At one of her stops, she puts the meals that will last the client until her next visit in a cooler set outside the door of that person's home. "A lot of people (other volunteers) haven't seen her in years," Dooley said.
But most of her clients look forward to her visits, and are there to greet her, to grab her ear and chat for a few minutes.
"I think a lot of them look forward to the visit," she said. "A lot of times, I wind up leaving while we're still talking," because she must get on with her route.
Providing the meals is a vital part of helping keep many of her clients out of nursing homes, allowing them to continue their independent living in their own homes.
Theoretically, the senior center asks for a $3 donation for each meal delivered. "But really," Dooley said, "it's what they can pay. Face it, some of these people can't afford it. Central District Health doesn't require that they pay for it."
Some of the homes she visits are nice, showing years of careful care by their owners. Others are beat-up trailers or small houses barely bigger, in total, than the average person's bedroom.
"This one," she said, returning to her car after dropping off several meals to an elderly man living in a 500-square-foot home, "I came in one day and he was eating his meal on his lap, just sitting in a chair, because his table had broken." She made sure it got replaced, although that's not really part of her job description.
But much of what Dooley does isn't part of the official job description. She enjoys her chats with each client, sharing "a little gossip" about their lives, or what's going on in town. She notices if they're not feeling well, and sometimes checks to make sure they're taking their medication. You can see, in the faces of her clients when she shows up, that she is a bright moment in their homebound lives.
"This job is so rewarding," she says. "A lot of people tell me, 'if it wasn't for you, I'd just give up.' It make a huge difference to these people."
She cares about her clients and looks after them.
A few weeks ago, she said, the sheriff's office called the Meals on Wheels program, asking if any of the clients needed their yards worked on. Dooley helped provide a list, and the sheriff's inmate detail went out and cleaned up the yards.
A few years ago, during the winter, she went to a home and found the client almost freezing to death. She reported it to the center, and Idaho Power went out and put some extra insulation in the woman's trailer.
In many ways, each visit is a welfare check on that client. More than one volunteer driver in the Meals on Wheels program has shown up, only to find a client lying in bed, or on the floor, suffering from a medical emergency.
Sometimes, a client isn't home, because they've gone into the hospital, although usually Jones and Dooley are notified so they know not to deliver a meal.
And it is in the nature of the job that many of her clients over the years have died. "I've gone to an awful lot of funerals," Dooley said. "These people become friends, like part of the family, and losing them is sometimes hard."
Dooley got involved in the program nine years ago with her late husband, who died two years ago. "James wanted to help people after he retired. We decided this was one way we could do that.
"I guess I've just always been one for volunteering," she said. "I believe we can always give. If it's not money, we can give of ourselves."
At 72, the spry, outgoing and energetic Dooley actually is older than some of her clients. "It doesn't make any difference if I'm older than they are," she said. "They're still hungry."
"My husband and I, when you see how the other half lives, it makes you feel grateful for what you have.
"And if your children or grandchildren see you volunteer, and see how much you get out of it, then they're more likely to do it, too."
And her clients appreciate her visits. "She cares about us," one said.
Volunteers like Dooley are always needed for the Meals on Wheels program. Anyone interested in helping should contact Patty Jones at the senior center in Mountain Home.