Meals on Wheels doing better than OK during pandemic

By GILLIAN SLADE on June 12, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

The Meals on Wheels program has not skipped a beat during the COVID-19 lockdown and you could say there have even been some improvements.

The daily meals are normally delivered to seniors by other senior volunteer drivers.

The decision was made early in the lockdown that the volunteers were in a high-risk group themselves for COVID.

Leah Prestayko, general manager community development for the city, says a decision was made to redeploy some city workers to take on the delivery task. In this case it was employees that typically work at the Esplanade. They were not needed there during lockdown and could fill in delivering meals.

For the volunteers though there was still a vital role to play.

Susan Clegg has been delivering meals for six or seven years. People on the route she covers know her well and enjoy the regular interaction.

The city decided it would be a great idea for the volunteers to telephone their clients a couple times a week – just to keep in touch.

Clegg says there are four people she calls a couple times a week.

“They’re very, very thankful for the call,” said Clegg. “We just talk about every other thing.”

The conversations are generally about their gardens, what they had to eat, what they did the day before and whether they have anything on their schedule and so on.

Clegg says they always make a point of thanking her for the phone call.

She remembers the days of delivering meals and how many of the seniors would keep tabs on whether she arrived exactly on time or was a few minutes late.

Some specifically ask, in those telephone calls, when she will be delivering the meals again.

Clegg says she is also looking forward to the old times when she does the delivering and sees the clients face to face once more.