Meals on Wheels program needs more volunteers
By RYAN MURRAY
The Daily Inter Lake
All it takes is an hour and a half.
That’s all the Flathead County Agency on Aging is asking for volunteers to donate to help keep the Meals on Wheels program running.
Christine Neater, the community outreach coordinator for the Flathead County Agency on Aging, said the service volunteers provide to the organization is a public good.
“It’s so almost moving to go to the door to deliver meals to these people,” she said. “The big smile on their faces is amazing. Sometimes they wait by the door for you to arrive.”
To be a volunteer, a driver must have a valid driver’s license and car insurance. Volunteers drive their own vehicle and get a meal and mileage reimbursement for their time.
J.R. Isles, the nutrition manager of the Agency on Aging, said volunteers are at an unusually low level.
“We’ve had drivers for 20 years up and retire on us,” he said. “So we see this type of thing in the fall when the snowbirds head south, but the summer usually has a bunch of volunteers.”
Isles and staff at the agency prepare more than 80,000 meals a year, about 350 each day running through 12 routes in Kalispell and routes in Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Bigfork and Lakeside as well.
“The demand is high and keeps growing,” he said. “With more routes and more mouths to feed, we need more volunteers.”
A new volunteer might be escorted by a more experienced one the first one or two times they do a route, but since all it takes is an hour or hour and a half over the lunch hour for each shift, the idea is relatively straight-forward.
“Volunteers are extremely important to us,” Neater said. “Without volunteers it becomes very difficult to deliver these meals. Most volunteers are older adults so they know they could rely on Meals on Wheels someday.”
Some businesses are collectively volunteering. It’s a fun way to spend a lunch hour and it helps hundreds of people in the Flathead Valley, she said.
To volunteer or get more information, contact Carol at 758-5711.