MEALS ON WHEELS IN CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Gray Eliot introduced Carol Lousisell, Director of Community Engagement for Meals on Wheels and Senior Outreach Services for Contra Costa County. Carol joined the program last January after having worked with Catholic Charities of the East Bay and John Muir Health.
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Meals on Wheels and Senior Outreach Services were started in 1968. Today, the nationally affiliated program has a $1.5 million budget and serves over 5,000 seniors in our area. Forty-four percent of the seniors served lived alone,fity-seven percent are women and thirty percent are 80 years or older. The program has 7 full-time employees, 28 part-time workers and 800 volunteers. In addition to in-home services and deliveries, they run six drop-in CC Cafés, which serve 200 meals per day in Walnut Creek, Concord, Pittsburg, Antioch and Bay Point. The Bateman Café in Antioch, is where all food is prepared.
There are 47 routes for Meals on Wheels, serving 725 meals daily and requiring 250 volunteers each week. Summertime is an especially challenging time in terms of meal delivery as so many volunteers take vacation; so back-up substitutes are always welcome! Volunteers make a 2 to 3-hour commitment each week, although this can be less when a group volunteers together.
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In addition to meal delivery, the Outreach Program also delivers birthday gifts and performs safety checks on house-bound seniors. Home assessments are done and modifications sometimes made to ensure client safety, as well as enhance the client’s ability to continue to live independently. The Friendly Visitor outreach effort matches volunteers one on one with seniors for weekly visits that can include exercise, occupational therapy and socialization.
Rotary is a well-recognized and appreciated source of volunteers throughout the county.