No one should go hungry and in Maine so many volunteers make sure the local population does not.
Local Maine farmers gladly welcome gleaning the fields and hand off the kitchen grade food to lend a hand to what’s put on the table. Children from families that are struggling get back packs for kids delivered by school bus. Reduced hot lunch programs for breakfast and lunch are available.
And seniors, the shut ins get meals on wheels. Many of them are Veterans who served and deserve good hot nutrition.
As a volunteer delivering meals on wheel lunches you meet the lady with the walker and southern drawl from Texas. Knocking on her door to deliver the meals on wheels pick of the day offering to pop in the oven or microwave, she flashes a smile as large as the lone star state logo on her apartment door entrance door mat. She is glad to see Meg who like clockwork shows up with the container of filled with what’s for lunch today.
Always cheerful despite being house bound, enduring her share of aches and pains and loss of mobility.
The meals on wheels delivery person is this widows contact to the outside world. Especially when a Maine winter shoves its way into the calendar pages hanging in her apartment unit kitchen. The days locked up at home can slow to a crawl and seem to never end. When you can hop in your car at the drop of a hat it is easy to forget what it would be like for those who can not run the roads.
On to the next stop, reaching into the insulated black zippered square box with the shoulder strap. The couple out in the country on a dead end road knows she is coming before the tap tap on the back door at the top of the wheelchair ramp. Before being passed the meal of the day or opening the freezer compartment to tuck it away for tomorrow.
Peggy the old black family dog with graying around her mouth gets animated and signals we have company.
Looking for her green tennis ball while the lunch containers are distributed. Just in case the meals on wheels delivery person might then take time to play toss and retrieve. Her master is confined to a bright red scooter chair with the motor. His wife busy taking care of him but also nursing her own long list of ailments caused by plain and simple accumulated years. And being a round the clock care giver. Contributing to her meal schedule helps lighten her load tremendously. One meal a day is someone else’s responsibility by someone other than me, myself and I in Northern Maine.
They all agree, the food is excellent. I’ve tried one that was left over and no one home to put it in a freezer. The ones in our area from the Aroostook Agency on Aging and all home made tasty. Nothing like the tinfoil hungry man or Swanson TV dinners I sampled in college. Great variety, grateful recipients and a friendship forms between the lunch or breakfast meal provider and receiver. Home bound individuals in Maine who can not get out to attend a facility prepared lunch at a senior center and who have difficulty preparing one appreciate meals on wheels.
Meals on wheels is more than helping avoid hunger than millions of American fear.
It helps with reducing the isolation and belief no one cares. Sadly 8 out of 10 senior citizens suffer from food insecurity. They don’t receive the home delivered food they need. Twenty five percent of the elderly citizens live alone. The meals on wheels program helps keep a home owner in their house as they struggle to make ends meet. More statistics on Maine’s meals for wheels program.
It’s not one size fits all either. The meals on wheels selection work around dietary restrictions. Get heart friendly, diabetic sensitive, vegetarian, gluten free and lower sodium lunch time selections. Take a peek at all that is offered for Maine made meals on wheels lunches.
Are you retired, do you have some time each week to volunteer and give back to your local community? Breaking the cutest, most delicious small loaves of home made bread and sharing meals delivered by you to the home of someone needing them is a unique highly rewarding experience.
To partner up with the meals on wheels program, you only need a valid Maine driver’s license, background check, a reliable vehicle. Volunteers can be paid 42 cents per mile for reimbursement, but volunteers in southern Aroostook County where I live have not asked to be compensated.
It’s more than just delivering a meal, you are checking in on a friend and neighbor.
Maybe the only person besides Bob Barker, whatever talk show host or soap opera star that meals on wheels receiver may see all day long. Meals are delivered one day a week, with five meals presented to each participant. Volunteers are also needed to make phone calls to the many seniors. For more information, tap out the number sequence 1-800-439-1789. More FAQ meals on wheels program details. And if you are in the Portland area, click here.
More drivers are needed and they have the meals to deliver. If more go between connections can be made to link up the delivery person with the hungry lunch receiver.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA