Beyond Food: Volunteer organization started delivering meals in 1962 and had just five people on its list

Hellen Prichard remembers what her mother told her everyone needs.

Food. Love. Flowers. Manners. Church.

Prichard stepped forward in 1962 to lead a new effort to feed shut-ins. There were five people on the delivery list.

Today, Gov. Bev Perdue will come to Winston-Salem to help Meals on Wheels celebrate the delivery of meal No. 4 million. Prichard will be there, too, along with others who have worked over the years to make the program a success.

"I grew up in a mining town in Pennsylvania," Prichard said last week. "We always used to feed the hobos who stayed in the brickyard. My father said as long as we had a slice of bread, we would make sure they had some."

When she delivered meals here in Winston-Salem, Prichard found out that she was delivering a lot more than food.

"Oftentimes those people live alone and have no one," Prichard said, recalling early deliveries. "They would often put the meal aside and say, ‘Can you talk to me?'"

Last year, Meals on Wheels served 305,286 meals to almost 2,000 elderly people. Richard Gottlieb, the president of Senior Services Inc., the organization that runs the program, said that 1,426 volunteers are delivering meals on a network of 66 hot-meal routes and 21 frozen-meal routes. At any given time, about 1,200 people are getting meals a day.

Gottlieb figured that if he paid the drivers on hot-meal routes a minimum wage, it would take $186,000 a year to pay them.

"There is absolutely no way our program could pay drivers to deliver those meals," Gottlieb said.

The 4-millionth meal comes at a particularly good time for Meals on Wheels. Thanks to more volunteers and donations, the program has managed to eliminate a waiting list of more than 250 people in August 2007.

"Right now we can help virtually anybody who calls and is qualified," Gottlieb said. That achievement has come in spite of a growing population of senior citizens. People are living longer, baby boomers are aging and the demand is only going to increase, he said.

It took 30 years from the time the program began in 1962 for it to serve 1 million meals. The next million meals were delivered eight years later, in 2000. In 2005, the program hit the 3-million mark, and only four years later is touching 4 million.

Prichard remembers that when the program started, there was plenty of interest but no existing organization that wanted to take it on. Prichard and a friend, Thomasine Hayes, stepped forward and got the effort going, followed shortly by a third woman, Juanita Gordon.

Gottlieb calls Meals on Wheels "one of those archetypal volunteer experiences that people get into when they want to do something."

"Most people, once they start, really get hooked," Gottlieb said.

The commitment of volunteers was tested severely in April 2008, when volunteer Anne Magness was fatally shot in the chest while she and her husband were delivering a meal to Bob Denning. Denning had been beaten to death. The Magnesses were both shot on Denning's front porch. Bill Magness was severely injured, but survived.

Volunteers realized that the crime was, as Gottlieb puts it, "a random and senseless act that could have happened anywhere at any time."

"There is no question that (volunteers) were more determined," Gottlieb said. "We had people step forward who said ‘I am determined to volunteer more.' They cared and asked what they could do."

Magness has returned as a volunteer, and makes deliveries when other drivers can't make their scheduled time.

Meals on Wheels isn't standing still, Gottlieb said. It is exploring ways to coordinate with local hospitals and doctors to reduce the number of elderly needing hospitalization.

As for Prichard, these days bad knees keep her from delivering meals. But she does like a new touch that the program has put in: bouquets of flowers that come with the meals.

After all, flowers are one thing you have to have, Prichard's mother once told her.

"How nice to get a tray with a flower on it," she said.

wyoung@wsjournal.com



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Meals on Wheels by the numbers

Here are some facts about the Meals on Wheels program run by Senior Services Inc., the oldest in the Southeast and third oldest in the nation.

4 MILLION MEALS: If you stretched out those meals in a straight line, it would take you from Winston-Salem to New York City.

VOLUNTEERS: In 2008 alone, they donated 25,749 hours. If they had been paid minimum wage, it would have cost $186,000.

BEGINNINGS: Meals on Wheels began in 1962. It served its 1 millionth meal in 1992, its 2 millionth in 2000 and its 3 millionth in 2005.

WHO'S FED: In 2008, 305,286 meals were served to 1,978 elderly people, of whom 1,201 were homebound.