Every Thursday of the week, Lucy Stevens organizes her paperwork for her volunteers and brings baked goods. This week, she’s baked ginger snaps and gets ready for another day of distributing meals. For the past 35 years, Lucy has been doing this routine ever since Meals On Wheels South Florida has been established. She found the organization through a friend at church.
"She asked me at the time if I would be willing to deliver (food) once a week for about an hour. And I thought well, yeah, I could do that. And partly for doing that was because my parents were elderly up north and I wasn't able to do it for them. So I thought this would be a way of doing for somebody's parents whose Children are up north and they couldn't do it for them. And i didn't have any idea that this would be so long. But, I've enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep on doing it," said Stevens.
At 89 years old, Lucy is still active and goes door to door distributing the meals with her route partner Louise. During the COVID-19 outbreak, many of the volunteers who are also elderly decided to pause their deliveries to ensure their and their seniors safeties. Knowing the need the seniors have for the meals, Lucy knew she couldn’t stop and leave her seniors behind.
"How could I? I mean, they have to eat too. I feel lucky that I don't have any serious health problems. So I felt like, 'Why not?'" says Stevens.
Volunteers, like Lucy are the backbone to the Meals On Wheels program. The organization will match the volunteers with the seniors. Right now, the foundation is looking for volunteers for the meals distribution.
"Our biggest need right now is the home delivery because we had so many funds come in that we were able to take a lot of people off the waitlist. So we need volunteers now to be able fill in and deliver to those clients," said Walker Quarterman, Regional Coordinator, Meals On Wheels South Florida.
The Meals on Wheels volunteers will have a hands on mission and create a special bond with the seniors. And that’s what Lucy loves the most from the organization.
"You meet all these people and you get to see them every week. And they know you can't stay long, so it doesn't take much of your time. But you are making contact with them every week," said Stevens.
If you want to know more about the Volunteer program or want to volunteer you can click here.
And we are challenging our communities to step up and fight hunger among the most needy. If you want to contribute to our Meals on Wheels campaign you can clickhere.
