OCEAN COUNTY – Nourishing meals are only a part of what Meals on Wheels Ocean County serves up to seniors around the county. They also provide a social connection to those who don’t get out much.
Jersey Shore Online.com recently took part in a ride-along on one of several daily food distribution routes. We set off from Saint Andrew’s United Methodist Church in Toms River at 8:05 a.m. with Mike Haliscak of Toms River, whose route took us through Plumsted and Jackson townships. The church opens up its parking lot and facilities to the drivers.
The agency’s motto is “More Than Meals – Community, Care, Connection.” Every Meals on Wheels program is operated differently and this one uses paid staff to deliver daily meals. According to the agency’s annual report, the agency has around 25-50 volunteers that come and help in the kitchen. They have been rebuilding its volunteer program which ceased during the pandemic several years ago.
With the re-instated volunteer program, organization leaders are asking people to volunteer for meal prep in the kitchen, at the Community Cafe, delivering meals and reaching out to socially isolated seniors through telephone reassurance calls or friendly visits.
The county program relies on paid staff to ensure the 1,000 meals every weekday, gets to a resident at around the same time each day and offers that friendly ‘hello’ and that wellness and safety check.
Meals are prepared in Manahawkin and once they are prepared around 7:30 a.m., they are packaged in three trucks and brought to the church parking lot where a fleet of Meals on Wheels vehicles are waiting to be loaded.
An Indiana firm retrofits the vehicles to be equipped with refrigeration and storage for the meal distribution. Currently the agency has 28 vehicles. There are efforts to secure a grant for replacement trucks. Congressman Andy Kim got discretionary funding for five vehicles during the pandemic.
Meal distribution includes a wellness check where Mike and other volunteers who do a distribution run speak with recipients and/or family members and health aides.
“I’m a floater. I do everybody’s route. A lot of my clients will leave the door unlocked. I know which ones leave them unlocked. I ring the doorbell, I’ll come in and yell real loud ‘good morning’ and nine times out of 10 they are in the bathroom. They are old and I try not to scare them. They usually call out ‘Mike?’ I reply and ask if everything is good and they say ‘yup, leave it on the kitchen table.’ As long as they answer me, we’re good,” he noted.
This was a busy day for Haliscak. He had all his drop offs in the two large rural communities and Jackson had its community café run. “I go to individual homes. I have one guy in Jackson who has over 100 oxygen tanks all over the house. He is on oxygen and you have to watch when you walk that you don’t trip over his air hose.”
“I start an hour earlier than everybody else to make sure the hot boxes are hot and the cold boxes are cold by the time they come in. It usually takes about an hour to get them at a good operating temperature,” Haliscak said.
He said, “I’ve been involved with this for four months. I was a manager for five years for QuickChek. I worked for a municipality in north Jersey for 32 years. They gave me a buyout. This is a good fun job for me because it is a morning job and you build a relationship with the clients. I saw one of my clients last week when I stopped in to a QuickChek in Manchester when I was getting my coffee. He got a puppy so we were talking about the puppy.”
During the ride, an alert blared out from the vehicle’s dashboard in the form of the opening theme from Star Wars which Haliscak explained he had set as a ringtone to let him know it was a message from the Meals on Wheels dispatch which updates him on any route changes such as someone who might not be home that day.
“For me this is very rewarding. Some of them want you to stay longer and spend time with them,” Haliscak added. “Some have me timed. They say, ‘hey Mike you’re late.’ They know exactly when you are set to arrive.”
Representatives of the group noted that seniors are living longer, but many are outliving their savings. Many are feeling the financial strain of increasing costs while living on a fixed income. Participants are asked for a voluntary $3 per meal donation and last year, the agency did not receive 53% of those donations which amounted to over $440,000 in just $3 donations.
In a recent survey they performed amongst their participants, 36% asked for additional help with benefits and 41% said they needed additional food and groceries.
For additional information about Meals on Wheels Ocean County, visit csimow.org
