Meal delivery drivers an important link for the homebound

The past year has changed many things in our day-today lives. Kids have had to learn from home and adapt to new technology; adults have, too, and masks have been seen on many people as they go about their day. But while kids and most adults have been able to continue on with their lives, one segment of the population has spent the past year more isolated and lonely than ever before: the elderly and homebound.

Many of the elderly and homebound who live in Clark County receive help from the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Clark County (ADRC) on a regular basis. With several satellite locations across the county, ADRC director Lynne McDonald said one of the main jobs of the ADRC is to provide meals and other services to the elderly, especially those seniors who are not able to leave their homes or cook their own meals.

“We have sites in Loyal, Greenwood, Neillsville, Colby and Thorp,” she said. “Clark County is a big county. Each one of these places has a site manager, drivers go out from these sites and give food to every senior on their route. These people are not able to get out and get their own meals or are not able to prepare their own meals.”

Before the pandemic, McDonald said ADRC was able to offer many in-person services at their facilities, as well. Once everything was forced to close down, however, she said many of those elderly who stopped in for meals now had to remain home to avoid getting sick.

“Well, we’ve had an increase of homebound seniors with COVID,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to tell (how many are now homebound), some of these people were coming in person but had to go to homebound because of restrictions. People are not feeling as safe going out. Being home in isolation, COVID created more problems with everything being shut down.” In addition to remaining at home, McDonald said there were other changes that needed to be made in how food was delivered to the elderly in response to the pandemic. In the past, she said drivers would be able to deliver the meals and have friendly conversation with the people on their route. There has been less of that allowed now, she said.

“On a non-COVID year the driver did get to chat with the seniors,” she said. “Now they put the meal on the table and watch for the person to come and get it.”

While the homebound are still able to be checked up on in this way, McDonald said it is hard on both the drivers and the elderly to be limited in being able to share time together. Many of those elderly look forward to having someone to be able to talk to, and take away some of the burden of being stuck at home for a while.

“The biggest benefit of having the drivers is the fact that the drivers are seeing people,” she said. “They get to know the folks. It’s a big security for people.”

To make sure that the elderly who are homebound no longer have to spend their days with nothing to do and no one to talk to, McDonald said they have launched an “Ask Your Driver” program, which will allow the homebound to call their driver to talk and to ask for extra items to be brought to them when they visit.

“We were trying to come up with solutions to try to help,” she said. “We came up with Ask your Driver. They will put boxes in each van and fill it with large print books, magazines and other things and drivers contacting the people can ask if they want or need anything. Without being able to get out, giving them something that will pass the time during the day is nice for them instead of just watching TV.”

As the program is just getting started, McDonald said they are in need of items to be given to the elderly for their use. These items include adult coloring books, colored pencils, large print magazines, 300-500 piece jigsaw puzzles, decks of cards, books, CDs of music, large print puzzle books and craft kits.

“Think outside the box on what people would like,” she said. “We plan to stock each van with a box and let everyone know they can ask their driver for something.”

The Catholic parishes in Loyal, Greenwood and Willard will have donation boxes in their church buildings for items to donate to the ADRC Ask Your Driver program through the month of March. They will be collecting items as part of a “Spread a Little Love” drive until Easter on April 4 when the items will be given to the ADRC.

Clark County ADRC and area churches are collecting items in March to distribute to homebound folks