Meals on Wheels hoping for awareness, volunteers

Erica Lepp has been delivering Meals on Wheels for 16 years, and although she has done other volunteer work, this is her favourite, she says.

Her kids have always helped her when they could, although now it is just Tia, 12, the youngest and only one still living at home, left to help.

Meals on Wheels has continued to provide a much-needed service throughout the pandemic, although meal delivery was adjusted to ensure safe dropoffs, and continues to protect clients and volunteers.

Pre-COVID, Meals on Wheels volunteers provides not only a nutritious meal, but a friendly face, five days a week, says Lepp. “It’s also a kind of wellness check,” she adds. Volunteers get to know their clients, and before the pandemic, could take a few minutes to chat with them. If volunteers notice any concerns about health issues, they pass on the information to the office, so family members can be notified.

“During COVID times,” Lepp says, “Meals on Wheels has been offering the same great hot meal and frozen meal deliveries, direct to homes, but they have adapted their protocol so the delivery is contactless and safe.”

And it is still a wellness check, she adds. Volunteers drop the meals at the door in a single-use plastic bag, and watch from the car to ensure recipients receive them. “We give them a wave from the car, instead of the usual hello and small talk we used to enjoy with them.” 

If the client doesn’t come to the door, she says, she’ll call them from her car, and if there is no answer, will take the meal and let the office know it wasn’t delivered.

“This means so  much to Meals on Wheels clients. They are so appreciative,” says Lepp. “You can sense as a volunteer that it’s really important to them.”

Not all clients are house-bound — some just choose meal delivery because they get a good variety of balanced meals they don’t have to cook. Meals include soup, a main course with meat or fish, two vegetables, pasta or a potato, and dessert.

There is a four-week cycle of menus, and substitutions will be made for a limited number of food preferences and intolerances. All therapeutic diets, such as for diabetics, or salt-restricted, can be accommodated.

Meals are prepared and packed by staff in the kitchen of the Niagara Ina Grafton Gage Retirement Village in St. Catharines, under the supervision of qualified dieticians, and sent to Niagara Falls in heated bags, to be loaded in volunteers’ vehicles, and delivered Monday through Friday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Frozen meals can also be ordered, and are delivered on Tuesdays, around noon.

Volunteer deliveries take about two hours, and those interested in helping can sign up for as little as once a month, says Lepp.

She chooses to be a flex driver, which means rather than having one set day, she fills in for other drivers when they are away or for some reason unable to deliver on their usual day. She typically has one or two days a month scheduled, and the occasional morning call with a request to drive for someone who is unavailable that day.

Marianne McRae and Ann Ellis, the women who run the Niagara Falls program, which covers Niagara-on-the-Lake, make it a pleasure to be a volunteer, says Lepp.

“They make it easy. The service is very efficient, and very reliable. And the the program is amazing. I love it.”

“We get to know people on our routes,” adds Lepp, “and for some people, we might be the only person they see all week.”

Since most of the volunteers are retired, she says she’s always been one of the youngest, and on the days when her kids could go along with her, many clients really enjoyed chatting with them — some offered the kids candy, and she had one client who always produced an apple.

‘It was the first volunteering I did with my kids. I wanted to show them a way to give back that isn’t monetary. It’s your time you’re giving. Meals on Wheels has been a great way to get them involved. Everyone loved seeing the kids. And my kids never argued about doing it, they liked it. Sometimes they’d bring their friends along. The clients were so appreciative, so sweet and nice about it. It’s an easy way to be engaged in the community.”

Melanie Kelch agrees Meals on Wheels is a good way to become involved in the community. When she and her husband Allan Cobham moved to St. Davids, they decided to devote some of their time to Meals on Wheels.

They deliver meals on Mondays, one day a month, and fill in occasionally on other days when needed. 

Knowing they are the only people a recipient might see that day makes it very rewarding for them, as does knowing that person will have one hot meal, Kelch says.

They also appreciate it’s done safely to protect against the spread of COVID. “We have long arms to reach out, and we always wear a mask. Sometimes I just leave the meal on a chair, and step back, but we always make sure we see them. It’s important to have eyes on them, to know they’re okay. Sadly some of them are very isolated, and so much more so during COVID.”

Kelch says she and her husband have both lost their parents, “but we know that if they were in need, we’d have appreciated having someone to help them. We do this in their honour.”

They also grew up in families who were involved in their communities, and who taught their children to do the same. “We both had parents who passed that on to us, that it’s important to give back. Even as seniors themselves, they continued to help others.”

Kelch has friends whose elderly parents receive Meals on Wheels, and she’s heard from them how grateful they are that someone is checking on their family members when they make their dropoffs. “It’s good to hear that from other family members. And I feel this is something I can do for others who are still working, and can’t do it themselves for their parents.”

Ann Ellis, program coordinator for Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, says since people aren’t travelling as much since COVID, at the moment they have a strong base of volunteers. But that isn’t likely to last, as people begin to travel more, and she always welcomes more help. “We need a pretty big stable of volunteers to fill those gaps, and to have more people at the ready.”

There are about 15 to 20 clients in NOTL, and about 75 to 80 volunteers at the moment. 

She says she’s watched Lepp’s kids grow up in the last 16 years, and although they haven’t had many volunteers bringing their kids along, they have sometimes seen grandchildren help out.

“Occasionally we’ll hear a volunteer say they can’t work on a particular day because they’re looking after their grandkids, and we suggest they bring them along. It works well in NOTL because there aren’t many apartments, and in most situations, one person can stay in the car with the kids.”

She also has parents and grandparents bring their teens along for the volunteer hours they need to graduate from high school, she says.

Next week, a flag will be raised at town hall to show its participation in March for Meals, a time when providers across Ontario participate in the annual campaign to increase awareness and community engagement with local Meals on Wheels providers. It’s important not only to attract more volunteers, says Ellis, but to remind seniors and their caregivers of the value of the program, for the nutritious meals, and also for that wellness check, especially when often family members live far from their loved ones and can’t visit regularly. 

Sometimes, she says, it’s a matter of a senior’s health declining slowly, “and by the time they get to the stage where they need help, they aren’t always able to make good decisions for themselves. It’s a gradual slide, and then all of a sudden it’s hard to get that sorted out.”

Anyone interested in volunteering for Meals on Wheels, or arranging meal delivery, can contact the Niagara Falls Meals on Wheels office at 905-356-9194 or visit https://mealsonwheelsniagara.ca/niagara-falls/.