Meals on Wheels needs volunteers
Meals on Wheels needs volunteers
By Cheryl Chumley
Published: June 10, 2010
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nowBuzz up!PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va.—
“Volunteers can work one day a week, one day every other week, or serve as a substitute,” said Daphne Van Tiem, manager of the information assistance division at the Agency on Aging, in regards to the Meals on Wheels program. “It takes between one to two hours a day to drive a route.”
Meals on Wheels served 187 people between July 2009 and May 2010, she said. Most clients are homebound and unable to perform certain daily tasks without assistance.
“They can’t cook, or they don’t have someone to cook for them,” Van Tiem said.
So Meals on Wheels volunteers bring hot meals once a day to them, excluding holidays, weekends and times of inclement weather.
“Volunteers also function as our eyes and ears,” Van Tiem said. “Because the people we serve are much more frail, the volunteers are trained to report back to us any changes.”
Volunteers begin their shifts around noon at either the Woodbridge or Manassas senior centers, where they’re handed their routes and meals for delivery.
The food is the same that’s served at the senior centers, only it’s packaged in reusable thermal bags. Drivers deliver all over the county, from Woodbridge to Quantico, and in Manassas and Manassas Park, but the biggest demand of late has come from the Bristow-Gainesville-Haymarket areas.
“We’re getting more clients out there because the area has grown so much these past few years,” Van Tiem said. “I suspect the need there will continue for some time.”
Demand for volunteers – especially substitutes—escalates in the summer because drivers take vacations, Van Tiem said.
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