The Great Reconnection: A Day in the Life of a Meals on Wheels Volunteer

In this episode, we sit down with Gregory Lind, a dedicated AgeGuide Board Member, and a volunteer for Home Delivered Meals at Kane Senior Council. Greg shares his unique perspective on the transformative power of volunteering and recounts personal experiences with homebound older adults. His efforts resonate with the overarching mission to propel 'The Great Re-Connection' in his community. At the end we take you on a ride along to experience what it feels to volunteer with Meals on Wheels. 

For more information about volunteering, visit www.ageguide.org

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome to The Age Guide, perspectives on the aging journey. We are here to be your personal age guide and enhance your quality of life on the road ahead. Welcome to another episode of Age Guide's 50th Anniversary Series, where we delve into the theme of the Great Reconnection. In this episode, we have the privilege of sitting down with Gregory Lind, a dedicated Age Guide board member and a volunteer for home-delivered meals at Kane Senior Council. Greg shares his unique perspective on the transformative power of volunteering and recounts personal experiences with homebound older adults. His efforts resonate with the overarching mission to propel the great reconnection in his community. Get ready to be inspired as we explore the impactful initiatives undertaken by AgeGuides-funded partners and hear how they contribute to building meaningful connections for older adults. Let's dive into a conversation that encapsulates the essence of the Great Reconnection.

SPEAKER_06 1:15

All right. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Mr. Lind. We're here with Greg Lind, who is not only an Age Guide board member, but also a volunteer with DuPage Senior Citizens Council Home Delivered Meals Program, delivering meals.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, thank you for that. I really feel good being here, and I hope I can tell a lot of folks what it's like to deliver meals on wheels. And if they would like to volunteer, I'd strongly recommend to them to volunteer as well because they'll get a lot more out of it than perhaps some of the people that are receiving the meals I deliver.

SPEAKER_06 2:01

You think you get more out of it than they do sometimes, huh? You bet I do. That's the beauty of volunteering, right? Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

So I... Currently live in Geneva, Illinois, but I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, which is about 50, 60 miles away from where I'm living now. Okay. And I'm 75 years old or young, depending on how you want to look at

SPEAKER_06 2:29

it. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

And what got me into delivering Meals on Wheels? Mm-hmm. you know, you need to get out of the house more. So I started looking around, and at that time I was having coffee with a group of seniors, one of which was delivering Meals on Wheels.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

Okay. They told you about it?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

And I says, what's that like? And so he offered to take me on a ride, and... I says, this is pretty neat. You're driving your car. I like to drive. You're meeting people. I like to meet people. And I'm getting out of the house.

SPEAKER_06 3:40

It made your wife happy. It was the perfect

SPEAKER_02 3:41

gig for you. Everything was perfect. So I filled out the paperwork for delivering Meals on Wheels. And at that time, The Salvation Army was involved in doing it in Kane County. The money that comes in from a lot of locations comes from Age Guide. And Age Guide is a really great organization. They're well managed. They have excellent employees. Well, thank

SPEAKER_06 4:14

you.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

And really are doing a service to our part of Illinois.

SPEAKER_06 4:22

And you've learned all that from your years on the Age Guide Board of Directors, I assume.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yes. I would never have been on the Board of Directors unless I was delivering Meals on Wheels because one day I was at a Meals on Wheels site picking up my meals to go out to deliver to folks. And in those days we packed our own... cold portions of our meals we would pack ourselves.

SPEAKER_05 4:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

And age guide had an auditor there and My last position at Hewlett-Packard was as an ISO 9000 auditor.

SPEAKER_06 5:09

Oh, okay. So

SPEAKER_02 5:10

you knew about audits. So I had to become an auditor.

SPEAKER_06 5:13

And then you found out about Age Guide and

SPEAKER_02 5:15

found out there was a position on there. And after, she came over and said, you know, you might like to look into Age Guide. Well, we've got openings on the advisory council where I started.

UNKNOWN 5:31

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

progressed into being on the board.

SPEAKER_05 5:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Hello and welcome to your Medicare Minute. We are here with Val Guzman, our Benefit Access Specialist here at AgeGuide. On this episode, we have a question from Miriam in DuPage County. I've been helped by a SHIP counselor before, but I'm curious if I can help people in the same way. What should I do?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yes, you can sign up to be a SHIP counselor volunteer. As a SHIP counselor, you get to speak with Medicare beneficiaries to help answer their questions. and to help them navigate all things Medicare related. You can also attend senior fairs and other community events to spread awareness of what we do as SHIP counselors. SHIP counselors get a chance to connect with new people and make a difference in their lives. The first step is to go through SHIP training where you'll learn the ins and outs of Medicare. You can call Age Guide or visit our website ageguide.org to get more information about being a SHIP counselor.

SPEAKER_06 6:38

Can you tell us what you do as a driver for home-delivered meals? What does that

SPEAKER_02 6:42

entail? So typically on a day that I'm delivering meals, I'll start the day off by... around 9.30, driving over to where the meals are picked up.

SPEAKER_06 6:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

And in Geneva, they're picked up at a church on 3rd Street, and the church has been nice enough to provide space for the kitchen area. And those meals are delivered by a truck to the church.

SPEAKER_06 7:17

Okay. And then the drivers get them from the church? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

From the truck, they go into a warming oven if they're the hot portion of the meal and into refrigerators or freezers if they're the cold portion of a meal or a frozen meal.

SPEAKER_06 7:36

So when you get there, do you get a list of who you're going to be delivering to that day?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Yes. Before I even get there, there's other volunteers that have to do their part of the... job

SPEAKER_03 7:51

at

SPEAKER_02 7:52

the site that I pick up from. And they take the meals and they put them into containers that are insulated containers that have straps that Keep the hot food hot or the cold food cold.

SPEAKER_06 8:09

Do you have to pack up those bags and the meals?

SPEAKER_02 8:12

They pack the bags.

SPEAKER_06 8:14

The other volunteers have everything packed for you. Okay, so then you have to get them all into your car?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So you go in and you sign in on the dotted lines. There's one sign-in sheet for a wellness check.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

It says you're there to do a wellness check. And there's another sign-up sheet that looks all most identical that you sign that says you're going to be delivering the nutrition.

SPEAKER_06 8:41

Okay. What is a wellness check?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

So a wellness check is when you go up to the door and you knock and the person comes to the door. You sort of observe and you seem to figure out in a short period of time. Sometimes you're going to spend three, four minutes with the person. Sometimes you're going to spend five

SPEAKER_06 9:05

Okay, you're just trying to figure out how they're doing and

SPEAKER_02 9:09

if they're safe and healthy. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

Okay, so it's really important that you're out there putting eyes on people who, like you said, might not see anyone else. So if you can't reach them or can't find them, you want to make sure they're okay and you have a way

SPEAKER_02 9:37

to follow up. You really, if you're seeing these people on a regular basis, sometimes you get attached to some of them.

SPEAKER_06 9:48

Do you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yes, yeah. And in my case, I often had my wife ride with me.

SPEAKER_06 9:57

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

So there were a couple of clients where they were towards the beginning of my route, and I dropped her off there. finish my

SPEAKER_06 10:10

route

SPEAKER_02 10:11

while she was visiting with them.

SPEAKER_06 10:13

And she could talk with them and chat a little bit. And I bet they loved that, having somebody to talk to.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

You bet. And she

SPEAKER_06 10:20

probably enjoyed it too.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 10:24

We're talking a lot on this podcast about social connections and the need for people to get reconnected again post-COVID where we were all apart. And it's sometimes hard for people to get reconnected again. And a lot of older adults who are stuck at home have a hard time getting back out there, getting to know people again, finding people that they can rely on and depend on. So sometimes that meal driver is a really significant person in someone's life.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah. Yes. So on special holidays or other occasions, we not only deliver the food, but children, young children, probably not kindergarten age, but various younger children would make up placemats.

SPEAKER_06 11:18

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Coloring crayons would be used to make up placemats. They'd

SPEAKER_06 11:24

draw little pictures and color something special for the older adults who were getting

SPEAKER_02 11:27

the meals. Oh, I bet they love that. Put words on there and you deliver that with the food.

SPEAKER_06 11:33

That's really nice. That's a nice little token of somebody cares and somebody's out there thinking about you. It's a tough job and a rewarding job at the same time, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Well, yeah. You as a person delivering the meals get a lot out of delivering the meals.

SPEAKER_06 11:53

It sounds like you've also trained some other drivers. So do you want to share one piece of advice that you would give to somebody who is considering volunteering with Meals on Wheels?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I'd tell them to consider a ride-along before they made their choice. Because you can't really explain to people what they're going to experience in real life just by word of mouth. But if you go out with somebody that's already delivering Meals on Wheels and just ride around with them while they're doing it, I think you'll really understand what it's like and be more likely to say, this is an hour and a half out of my day or an hour out of my day, maybe two hours out of your day, depending on how much time you spend with everybody. But that I think I'd really enjoy. Yeah,

SPEAKER_06 13:00

but you've got to try it, see it for yourself. Good idea. A ride-along's a great idea. I

SPEAKER_02 13:06

think.

SPEAKER_06 13:07

Yes. All right. And if folks want to get more information about volunteering at a home-delivered meal place near them, they can always go on the Age Guide website, too, and find their local nutrition site and give them a call and say, I'd like to volunteer or I'd like to go on a ride-along and see if I want to volunteer.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yes, I'd highly recommend that.

SPEAKER_06 13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

There's a lot of good information there. If they don't want to go to that site, they can just Google Meals on Wheels. Okay. And I'm sure they'll be able to find something that suits their area of the country and does the same sort of thing.

SPEAKER_06 13:48

Excellent. Well, thank you, Greg, for being here with us today and sharing your story about volunteering. We appreciate you for all the time you put into that and all the time you put into Age Guide, and it was a pleasure talking with you.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank

SPEAKER_00 14:06

you very much.

SPEAKER_06 14:07

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

For the second half of our podcast, you get to come with us on a ride along with Greg, where we deliver meals to some older adults. We start out at the meal pickup site and help Greg pack up the meals for delivery, and then ride along to some apartments to drop off the food. Let's listen in.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

so in the morning when hoffman house gets here they bring the food off of their delivery truck and the hot food goes in the warming oven and the frozen food if any goes over in the freezer and the milk and other things that can stay cold can go into the refrigerator and then the volunteers or site manager depending on locations and different things the volunteers will load the food that Hoffman House brings in into either white bags or brown bags and the brown bags are normal non-diabetic foods and the white bags signify that it's a diabetic bag and in there goes the fruit and the cookies, if there's cookies, and the water or milk, those sort of things.

SPEAKER_06 15:34

So you're the perfect person to take people on ride-alongs. If somebody wants a ride-along, we will highly recommend Gregland.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Here, if she's here today, is a real nice lady.

SPEAKER_06 15:51

How many people do we have here?

UNKNOWN 15:53

One, two, three, four, five, five drop-offs.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah, thanks. Come on in. This way. And the volunteers that pack these bags do an excellent job of starting at the bottom of that sheet. So at the top.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

And it's a brown base, so it's not a diabetic

SPEAKER_03 16:30

wheel. All right.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And then we knock pretty hard. Hi.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

Hi, how are

SPEAKER_02 16:39

you? How are you? I'm delivering meals on wheels. I have some folks with that are learning. And they're getting an idea of what it's like to be a driver. So in this case, there's a caregiver. And... she's taking care of it how is she hi how are you just a minute okay you get the uh food earlier than most well i've got some folks with that i'm showing the route to okay and uh how are you

SPEAKER_04 17:19

doing i am fine but i just noted that it wasn't 10 30 and i said oh it's monday yeah he's

SPEAKER_02 17:25

early yeah i come earlier good well thank you and to answer your question i'm fine that's great so on uh When you go out, if you're going out, it's going to be beautiful. It probably won't rain until a little later, but I hope it's as nice as it was yesterday. Take care. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Thank you. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Bye. And then, what's the next one on the list?

SPEAKER_06 17:51

Then we've got 219, so that's a little

SPEAKER_02 17:53

right nearby, right? Oh, 219. I forgot. What does the note say?

SPEAKER_06 17:58

Let's see. I have to put on my glasses. Meals on Wheels. I will be downstairs in dining room 9 to 10 for breakfast.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 18:08

Or walk in. Oh, you can leave it at 219 or walk in and put meal in refrigerator.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

So I pound on the door. Make sure. And then I open it. Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels. And then I come on in, and then I find the refrigerator, and I put the food in the refrigerator.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Since 1972, the Senior Nutrition Program has delivered millions of meals to older adults across America who could not otherwise prepare food for themselves at home. The Home-Delivered Meals Program provides a daily hot meal, well-being check, and a few moments of friendly conversation to homebound older adults in our eight-county service area. To learn more about the Senior Nutrition Program at AgeGuide, visit www.ageguide.org slash Senior Nutrition Program. Thank you for listening to the Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey. We hope you learned something new on this podcast because we all have a stake in promoting a high quality of life for people on their aging journey. HGUIDE coordinates and administers many services for older adults in Northeastern Illinois. We serve DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties. Our specially trained professionals are available to answer questions and connect you with local service providers and resources. If you are interested in these services or want to learn more, go to our website at hguide.org. Call our offices at 630-293-5990. Please follow our podcast so when we post our monthly podcast, you are notified on your streaming account. Thank you, and we will see you next time on The Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey.