Local Meals On Wheels volunteers, with the help of paid chefs, are cooking, packaging and delivering 140,000 meals a year for an average of 40 clients.
Mad River Valley Senior Citizens board member and Meals On Wheels spokesperson Dave Goldstein said that the program is put together with 86 volunteers and two paid chefs, Claudia Watts and Walter Brink.
Meals On Wheels clients receive hot meals twice a week and also receive two frozen meals for the weekends. Their meals are all certified by dieticians and special needs such as diabetes, soft foods, low sodium, vegetererian, etc. can be accommodated.
Goldstein said he thought the program’s budget is about $120,000 and explained that funding comes from the Central Vermont Council on Aging as well as local towns.
“The rest is donations and fundraising. Some of the food is donated by farms in the area and our supermarkets. The majority of the food is purchased,” he said.
Meals On Wheels are available to anyone who needs them. Clients sign up through the Central Vermont Council on Aging which vets them and meals are generally free for most recipients. There are also meals available for people who are infirm and can’t cook for a small fee for seven meals a week.
Additionally, local Meals On Wheels volunteers and chefs reguarly create blizzard packs for recipients to stick in the freezer for snowstorms. Meals On Wheels is closed when schools are sclosed.
Goldstein said that included in the 86 volunteers are those who help with the regular Monday breakfasts which are open to the public and raise funds for Meals On Wheels, and those who come in and help prep and do set up and serve for the regular weekly senior aggregate meals. Finally, there are volunteers who help with the food prep, packaging and delivery of the meals.
Goldstein and his wife live in Fayston. He’s been involved as a volunteer with Meals On Wheels for two years and has been on the board of the Mad River Valley Senior Citizens for just under a year.
“I was invited to one of the Monday breakfasts one day and asked if I had any free time to help out. I said ‘sure,’ and have just gotten more and more involved. The volunteers are terrific and the clients are just a joy,” he said.
“For many of the clients we deliver to, we could be their only social contact during the week and they’re genuinely grateful. We are also providing a basic welfare check, especially if someone is not answering the door,” he added.
Goldstein and his wife moved to The Valley at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They had been winter residents and when COVID hit, they pulled up stakes from New Jersey, found a home in The Valley and sold their ski condo.
“We’re full-timers now,” he concluded.
