TOMS RIVER – The county’s Office of Senior Services is stepping up their aid to seniors and their caregivers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
County officials noted that nutrition sites and numerous other services that assist seniors with their daily routines started to shut down because of the coronavirus health crisis.
In response, the Ocean County Office of Senior Services increased their assistance to the county’s most vulnerable population who continue to need help during the pandemic.
Ocean County Freeholder Director Joseph H. Vicari, chairman of the Ocean County Office of Senior Services, with Director of Senior Services Maria LaFace, recently presented an outline of the help provided by the county’s Senior Services staff to keep older adults healthy and safe during this challenging time.
Vicari said, “we substantially increased our home delivered meals during this time which provided not just a daily meal to a senior but also daily contact by someone who could make sure the senior is doing well. Sometimes that contact is just as if not more valuable than the meal itself.”
About 150,000 home delivered meals or emergency shelf stable meals were provided from April 1 to August 31, to seniors in Ocean County. This represents an increase of almost 40,000 from the same period last year.
“We saw a 30 percent increase in meals delivered and a 50 percent increase in new clients from 2019. Our home delivered meal providers also collected and delivered toilet paper, home cleaning products, and other items that couldn’t easily be found at grocery stores through a partnership with car dealerships in Toms River and Stafford Township,” Vicari noted.
He added, “I want to extend my deepest appreciation to Lester Glenn car dealership, Causeway car dealership, all those individuals and organizations that donated and to Community Services Inc., our major home delivered meals provider for lending a hand and going above and beyond to help our seniors.”
Approximately 173,000 senior citizens live in Ocean County and seniors that are 85 and older continue to increase in number.
“So many of our seniors want to continue to live independently and this pandemic tested our services that help them remain in their homes,” Vicari said.
“We were able, through our community of support programs, to help keep some of our most vulnerable residents out of nursing homes. We also helped many caregivers as we all began to learn to navigate changes to daily routines during a pandemic,” he added.
LaFace said this year thus far, “we provided 786 units of caregiver support compared to 361 units in 2019. Our provider network completed 1,460 units of service in 2020 compared to 688 in 2019.”
The Freeholder Director added, “there is no coronavirus pandemic playbook so our caregivers needed support to navigate how to help seniors and do it safely. Our caregivers are dedicated to helping our seniors so that they can continue to enjoy their independence as they age.”
“These men and women are an integral part in keeping our seniors healthy and safe,” he added.
The increase in caregiver calls also resulted in increased requests for the Jersey Assistance for Community Caregiving (JACC) program which is a state program that provides a broad array of in-home services to eligible seniors.
Vicari said the outpouring of help and the partnerships created during the pandemic has given needed assistance to many of the needy and frail seniors in Ocean County. He highlighted the Jersey Cares Inc. program that with the Office of Senior Services was able to provide 500 grocery shopping trips for the homebound and isolated seniors.
“The Office of Senior Services processed over 200 of these calls. We couldn’t provide this kind of help without the network of agencies collaborating their efforts toward the common goal of helping seniors,” Vicari added.
Vicari also noted another important factor, senior services staff and providers conducted 17,000 phone reassurance calls to seniors. “When our seniors began to feel anxious or isolated, they had the ability to talk to someone, who provided an understanding voice on the other end of the phone, a person to listen, calm and comfort.”
“Sometimes you just need someone to help set your mind at rest and that is what we strived to do,” Vicari said. He added that senior services staff also handled 2,000 COVID-19 related calls.
“The key to helping our seniors is to be there for them and especially when they need it most. That has always been the goal of the Office of Senior Services and now more than ever we have done all we can and more to let our elderly residents know we are there to help them,” Vicari said.
