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“Good morning,” beams Joyce Hill, a Meals on Wheels volunteer for Cobb Senior Services.
“You sure look pretty today. I love that dress,” she tells 82-year-old Iva Hayes, whom she calls
ESSENTIAL WORK: Several hundred volunteers work with Cobb County Senior Services to give hot meals to homebound seniors each day. Center and right, Joyce Hill and Iva Hayes.
her buddy. Once a week, Hill stops by Hayes’ apartment to deliver a hot meal and just chat.
“She tells me the best stories,” Hill said. “We talk about our week, the triumphs and the bad. I have two senior parents living in Kentucky, and I can’t help them, so I do this. I enjoy hanging out with seniors.”
A volunteer for three years, Hill is just one of 340 on the meal delivery team. The work is divided among them during the week, so each volunteer does not have to deliver meals each day.
Since most clients sign up for the maximum five hot meals a week, they often get to know five different volunteers.
“I’ve become real close to the volunteers,” Hayes said. “They even bring me presents on birthdays and holidays.”
Hayes first applied for the program five or six years ago when her arthritis and diabetes prevented her from cooking.
“I couldn’t stand in the kitchen to put a meal together,” she said. “I had been getting by with a sandwich, a piece of fruit and milk, but I knew I needed a good meal once a day.”
Hayes qualified for free meals, but she still makes a donation to the program once a month. Approximately 50 percent of the clients qualify for grants, and the other half pay for the meals on a sliding scale, depending on household income, said Senior Services Division Manager Linda Parrott. The maximum charge is $3.50 per meal.
“Sometimes that hot meal we deliver is the only meal these people get,” she said.
“It’s not as bad in Cobb County as in other counties, but we still have hungry people here. It’s not that they can’t afford food, but they just can’t cook or get to the grocery store. It’s easier to open a can of tuna and a box of crackers.”
Applicants, who must be 60 years or older and homebound because of illness or disability, are assessed by a Senior Services caseworker to determine their needs.
Currently, 200 clients are on the roster, but that number is going down as more seniors move in with their families, Parrott said.
Each year, volunteers serve more than 60,000 meals, which meet Food and Drug Administration requirements and are approved by a dietitian.
“A food service locates the best frozen meals out there and then sends them to us,” Parrott said. “The menu is new every quarter, and the meals are healthy with low sodium and low sugar.”
Senior Services staff heats the food at the main senior center, and then approximately 40 volunteers deliver the meals each day.
Meals on Wheels runs 23 routes in Cobb, but two more are desperately needed, according to Parrott.
“The people in small segments of east and south Cobb are not being served every day because we don’t have volunteers for those areas,” she said. “An option is that the staff can take them a two-week supply of frozen meals, but we want to make sure they get a hot meal every day.”
In addition to providing a hot, nutritious meal to the elderly, volunteers act as a link between the client and the caseworker.
“The volunteers relay problems, concerns or needs,” Parrott said.
“They are often the first to call when a client has fallen or becomes ill.”
Even more important, the volunteers provide one-on-one contact that these senior citizens need.
“On special occasions, they take them out to lunch, run errands for them and celebrate birthdays and holidays with them,” Parrott said. “Our volunteers are great. We can’t even put a price on their value.”
One 91-year-old volunteer has been helping Meals on Wheels since 1978, Volunteer Services Coordinator Kathleen McNulty said.
“We are always looking for more volunteers, and we encourage county employees to use one lunch hour a week to deliver a meal to the apartments nearby.”
Gratitude is easy to find, according to Nutrition Coordinator Geneva Eddington, who orders the meals.
“The clients are very appreciative,” she said. “We receive many letters thanking the volunteers and the program.”
Hayes said the volunteers have increased her quality of life.
“I was hoping to take care of myself for as long as I live, but I don’t know what I’d do now if I couldn’t get help.”
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