Meals on Wheels - update

Now that I have officially been delivering Meals on Wheels for a couple of months, I thought it was a good time to give an update about it. First of all, I really enjoy seeing the folks on my route each week and having a short visit with them. Many of them sound like they would really enjoy a longer visit but understand that I have to get food to the other clients. Still, I try to visit a little longer than the UPS delivery person. Weekly is just about right also. I think it would be burdensome and feel more like a job if I had to do it daily. Weekly is just fun.

The meals aren't much to write home about. Usually there is a modest entree and two warm vegetable servings in this cardboard serving container with a clear plastic cover. A couple of times we've delivered cold salads and fruit servings. The clients seem to like them even better than the hot meals but that could be because they're rare. In addition to the cardboard serving container, we also usually deliver cool supplements such as a carton of milk, a banana, or a piece of cake. Often these are bagged together to make it easier to deliver.

And speaking of delivery, we get all the cardboard serving containers (hot or cold) delivered to us in an insulated fabric carrier with a hot or cold "brick" at the bottom to keep the temperature as long as feasible. The cool supplements come in an ice cooler with some blue-ice blocks for temperature maintenance.

My route size has varied from a low of 12 customers to as many as 16. That includes two homes where I deliver two meals so there are only 10 to 14 actual stops. The route itself is less than 5 miles long but it is 10 miles from the meal pickup point which is 10 miles from home so I end up putting about 45 miles on my car each week for Meals on Wheels. Supposedly I do get some reimbursement from the county amounting to about $10 a week which probably covers the gas used.