Paula Nicewanger/Weekly View
David Clifton, small business owner, donated $500 to Meals on Wheels.
David Clifton, a small independent business owner who handles estate sales and buys gold, silver, diamonds and anything of value started running ads in the Weekly View a year ago March. He knew that frequency was important and liked our weekly columnist Linda Kennett’s What’s In the Attic and Vintage, Retro & Repurposed columns and wanted to reach the same readers. David started with a small ad there and then added a classified ad and then later a front page sidebar ad about buying gold. David says the ads in the Weekly View really work for him and he’s been blessed with helping people downsize and earn extra money on things they didn’t realize were valuable. David lost his Dad just this past December and they were very close. His Dad instilled in him the work ethic that has given him the success he has had. With everything slowing with the COVID-19 pandemic, he wanted to give back to the community, and especially to seniors, who are particularly vulnerable to the disruption. To help out, David recently made a $500 donation to Meals on Wheels of Central Indiana, a nonprofit organization that brings medically-tailored meals and hope to many in the metro Indianapolis area. His donation will make about 70 meals possible for Hoosiers in the Indianapolis area through their Virginia A. Wesley Financial Assistance Fund.
Meals on Wheels grew from the National Council of Jewish Women’s project as a home-delivered food program in 1968 to provide kosher meals for people who could not get out to shop or prepare their own meals. In Indianapolis, it went city-wide in 1971 with the support of the Commission on Aged and Aging, and a grant from the Lilly Endowment. They started with six clients and ten volunteers — and over the decades they have grown as the needs have grown.
Brandi Sasore, Communications Manager for Partners in Nutrition Indiana/Meals on Wheels noted that the organization provides medically-tailored meals to seniors, and others with chronic conditions who have been referred by doctors, hospitals, and clinics to provide nutritional support. Participants receive meals tailored to their unique medical needs, as well as nutritional education. About 1,000 meals are served each week in the Greater Indianapolis area, delivered by about 700 volunteers.
COVID-19 has made the task of getting nutritious food more challenging, Sasore said. Many of the volunteers for Meals on Wheels are corporate helpers, and with non-essential businesses closed and more people working from home, those individuals cannot deliver their usual routes. In addition, some regular volunteers are sheltering in place and cannot deliver until restrictions are lifted. Despite that, “we’ve got about 100 e-mails flooding in every day, individuals who want to volunteer,” she said. “We’re really proud that we have not missed a delivery yet.” Each volunteer goes through training on safe food handling and additional safety measures as recommended by the CDC..
Meals on Wheels is adjusting to the “new normal” by providing frozen meals via UPS for individuals who have freezers and can handle the deliveries. However, some people still require daily meal deliveries door-to-door. Sasore stressed that those deliveries are handled with no contact: gloved a0nd masked volunteers hang the food on a door, knock, and step a safe distance away for no-contact delivery. In addition, clients have been receiving a box of shelf-stable food to fill in the gaps.
All regular volunteers used to use the delivery to perform wellness checks with homebound individuals, and were sometimes the only contact someone would have with the outside world. Meals on Wheels is now performing these checks with weekly phone calls.
The organization is privately funded through donations. There is financial assistance available for recipients to pay for meals (there is an application fee and a nominal charge for meals), and Meals on Wheels is also approved for SNAP benefits. David’s generous donation will go into the financial assistance fund to help pay for meals. For information on how to donate and volunteer, visit their Web site mealsonwheelsindy.org. or email info@mealsonwheelsindy.org.
