Every day, the Norwich Senior Center operating from the halls of First Baptist Church serves meals to about 80 area seniors, with volunteers delivering the food to their homes through the Meals on Wheels program.
I’ve volunteered for Meals on Wheels before, so when I arrived at the Norwich Senior Center last Thursday, I expected to be delivering cold meals held in large coolers and warm ones in giant red thermal bags. The center, though, is much more than a beginning route for the goodwill deliveries. Every day, it hosts a free lunch for area seniors beginning at 11:45 a.m.
Just like the delivered meals, the Chenango County Public Safety Facility’s kitchen prepares about 200 to 250 meals a day for the Chenango County Area Agency on Aging, whose volunteers and staff deliver them to anyone 60 years or older and in need.
The center offers an open buffet of the meals to anyone who wants to visit the church for lunch. So while volunteers start marking their delivery rounds at about 10:30, others are preparing the buffet for visitors. On this particular day, more than a dozen local citizens arrived at the center for the daily luncheon.
When the program began in 1974, 75 percent of the meals were consumed at senior or community centers; today 75 percent are now delivered to residences, with about 200 meals being delivered county-wide.
Nutritional Services Coordinator of Agency on Aging Trudy Harris-Irons met me Thursday and had me travel with Chris Foster, a volunteer from the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program. Chris said the center was struggling to retain its own volunteers and RSVP suggested its members participate in the Meals on Wheels deliveries.
Chris, a kindred spirit and retired newspaper journalist, once worked for both The Evening Sun and the Binghamton newspaper. She is a longtime community volunteer, but began her work with the senior center about eight months ago.
Our first stop of the day was at the Golden Age Apartments, where we were greeted by eager residents and delivered 12 meals. The most important part of the drop off was making sure the containers marked for those with diabetes were delivered to the right address.
After a spending some time gossiping about a number of random topics with the group, we left hastily for Grace View Manor, another independent living apartment complex for the elderly.
While there, we dropped of another dozen meals and again had to sort the sugar-controlled meals from the rest. Grace View resident Jim Pizzi met us at the door; Chris told me he helps her bring in the meals every day.
