Special delivery
Even with snow, volunteers bring meals to elderly
BY DIANE GILES dgiles@kenoshanews.com
The first snows of the season have come to Kenosha County, bringing out the snowplows, ice scrappers and warm boots.
For those whose health is frail, a blizzard not only keeps them inside, it keeps others on the outside from getting in. That’s a potentially dangerous situation for elderly and disabled people who depend on visitors to bring them food.
Recently 250 cartons of emergency meals were delivered in Kenosha and Kenosha County to Meals on Wheels program clients, courtesy of the Kenosha Rotary Club. About 200 of the cartons are slated for clients in Kenosha.
The cartons contain cans of pasta with tomato sauce, cans of chili, cereal packages, powdered milk, juice boxes, crackers and cookies.
Meals on Wheels, which provides hot noon meals to local elderly and disabled home-bound residents. It is administered by Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services Inc., which was awarded an $8,025 grant this year from the Kenosha Rotary Club. The club paid for the emergency rations, and club members delivered them.
Each year, according to club treasurer Mark Molinaro Jr., $30,000 to $50,000 is raised through the Kenosha Rotary’s auction. The money is given out in a grant process.
“We’ve got a relationship going between the Rotary and KAFASI (Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services Inc.), and we hope it will last for quite a while,” Molinaro said.
Albert Jones, 78, lives in Saxony Manor, and his daughter, Diane James, of Kenosha, said the weekday meal deliveries are important to her father’s well-being. “He depends on them. It helps him out a lot,” James said.
This was the first time he had received an emergency rations box of this type.
The boxes are purchased pre-packed with the food, making it easier for the family and aging group to handle and distribute.
“The boxes are intended to provide five meals. Our intention is that if we can’t get to somebody because of the weather, our hope is that they will still be able to eat that one meal that we aren’t able to deliver (on that day),” said Lauren Zielsdorf, Meals on Wheels program director. “That gives a little peace of mind that if we have to close, these folks will still be OK.”
Zielsdorf hopes inclement weather won’t halt the weekday deliveries this season, but twice last winter treacherous roads stopped the volunteer delivery drivers from completing their rounds. Most winters have included at least one such non-delivery weekday in the past.
It’s not just Zielsdorf and the volunteer drivers who stress out on those bad weather days, but the clients as well, who worry about the drivers. “All around (those cartons) alleviate a lot of pressure in those situations,” Zielsdorf said.
Because of the generosity of the Rotary Foundation, Zielsdorf said, the program was able to order enough cartons for all the clients for the winter and will be able to send a second carton in the spring to clients to be used in case of a tornado or power outages.
About 13 Rotarians volunteered to deliver the cartons to the clients in November.
Zielsdorf said she appreciated the Rotary members who backed the project.
“It’s not easy to raise the money. It’s probably not easy to decide who to give it to,” she said. “But then after you’ve done that, you donate your own time to make the deliveries and make sure that the project gets completed. That’s phenomenal.”
Mark Molinaro III, 11, looks over the load of emergency meals he helped to deliver to Meals on Wheels clients.
KENOSHA NEWS PHOTOS BY BRIAN PASSINO Albert Jones, 78, left, talks with Kenosha Rotary Club treasurer Mark Molinaro Jr. and his children, Mark Molinaro III, 11, and Kimberly, 12, as they deliver Meals on Wheels food that Jones can eat if drivers are unable to reach him due to poor weather conditions.
