Meals on Wheels continues to nourish the area’s seniors

By Nicole Contosta

It’s a brisk morning in mid November as volunteers from Chestnut Hill Meals on Wheels lug large coolers laden with food into their cars. With two volunteers designated to deliver food along five different routes, the volunteers total a different set of 10 each Monday to Friday. Smiling and joking with one another as they pack their cars, there’s a sense of camaraderie among them. But the attitude of friendliness is hardly a novel one for those who participate in the Meals on Wheels program, which Mary Mebane began over 30 years ago.

And many of today’s volunteers have been delivering food in the Chestnut Hill and surrounding areas such as Springfield and Oreland for 10 years.

The core mission of Meals on Wheels focuses on providing two meals a day, seven days a week to senior citizens who have either just returned from the hospital and are not well enough to prepare meals for themselves yet, or for seniors who are no longer able to cook at all, said director Treacy Edwards.

In addition to ensuring that local seniors receive nourishment, Meals on Wheels creates a safety-net for those who may become ill.

“If for instance, one of our drivers notices that a particular senior looks ‘off’ then he/she will notify me because I have a list of emergency contacts for each person we serve so I can notify their family immediately,” said Edwards.

Occasionally, drivers have entered senior’s homes only to find them lying on the floor — injured or paralyzed. The senior citizens relatives often feel more secure knowing that their loved ones receive this type of constant contact, Edwards added.

“Besides, many of our drivers develop close relationships with the people we serve,” she said, explaining that some volunteers bake cookies and pies for seniors during the holidays.

Currently, Meals on Wheels provides food for 37 senior citizens, though its recipients don’t necessarily have to be in their golden years to qualify. “We try not to turn anyone down,” said Edwards mentioning that the fact that they also serve food to a 37-year-old amputee.

Located in the basement of the Chestnut Hill Hospital’s Laughlin Building, food delivered to Meals on Wheels clients is prepared in the hospital’s kitchen. A large, industrial room, the kitchen has the soothing aroma of chicken soup.

Only moments before the volunteers are scheduled to arrive, Edwards pushes two carts stacked with empty coolers and a clipboard into the kitchen. The clipboard contains lists of which senior citizen receives what food item.

Overall, Meals on Wheels offers more or less the same types of cuisine, rotating the menu every two weeks. However, if a senior has special dietary needs that prohibit him or her from consuming sodium, then they’ll receive an alternative to the turkey dinner.

Swiftly, Edwards along with the assistance of cook Dorothy Rawls pack the coolers according to the routes they’re delivered to. The women’s method of packing has an almost assembly-like quality. First, Edwards carries a milk crate jammed with different juice containers to the coolers. As she’s divvying up the different cartons, Rawls begins to pack each senior’s lunch bag, which like the lunch bags of grade school children, has their name printed along with their dietary needs on them.

Meanwhile, Edwards compresses the airtight take-out containers that will keep the senior’s dinner entrees warm. Within minutes, they have packed the coolers, stacked them back on the carts and sent them to the ready hands of volunteers.

And the seniors who receive the food are more than grateful for the service that Meals on Wheels provides. “It’s a great service, these people have to be commended,” said Anthony Chicone of Chestnut Hill.

It cost each senior $27 a week to receive food, “or whatever they can afford,” said Edwards, “which is sometimes nothing.”

Meals on Wheels acquires the rest of its financial support from private donations such as the Chestnut Hill Community Fund and the Springfield Middle School, who last year raised $960 from flea market sales.

Chestnut Hill Meals on Wheels is one of many community programs that receive funding from contributions to the Chestnut Hill Community Fund made by residents and businesspeople in Chestnut Hill. Donations to the Fund’s current fund drive may be made to Chestnut Hill Community Fund, and sent to the Chestnut Hill Community Association, 8434 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19118.