BLACKFOOT — The Bingham County Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels program will not be forced to cut back services thanks to the generosity of many local businesses.
Meals on Wheels is a national program where volunteers deliver meals to home-bound seniors. Through the Bingham County Senior Center, Paul Loomis volunteers for Meals on Wheels once a week, driving roughly 40 miles around the county to deliver meals.
“I just really see the need,” Loomis said. “These people are literally stuck in their homes, so they get no socialization. When a Meals on Wheels person comes and says hi to them, it’s the highlight of their day. Some of them have a good support network, and some of them don’t. Some of it really breaks your heart, but when you’re finished doing it, you feel like you’ve done something good.”
The Bingham County Senior Center receives its funding through the Area Agency on Aging which unfortunately lost some of its funding recently. The change would have resulted in the Meals on Wheels program being forced to reduce its services. Meals on Wheels typically provides one meal for each senior every day Monday through Friday. The program would have been forced to remove one of the daily meals unless it found a way to obtain about $7,000 in funding, Loomis said.
However, the Bingham County Senior Center was able to save the fifth daily meal using donations. As of April 4, they met their goal and will not need to cut back any meals for home-bound seniors.
“As far as I know, (the Bingham County Senior Center) is the only agency in the area that decided to not cut it back,” Loomis said. “What they’ve done is they’ve gone out to a lot of medium-sized businesses but also some small businesses and said ‘You know, if we could get 28 different small businesses to do a $250 contribution we can continue (to supply five meals a week).’”
Loomis said there were many small business donors, but also some large contributions including one from Idaho Central Credit Union. Some other businesses that donated include The Candy Jar, Homestead Family Restaurant, and Bingham Memorial Hospital, among many others.
Had they been forced to cut one meal back, Loomis said that some of those seniors would have gone hungry for the day without a meal delivered from Meals on Wheels.
“Some of them are just not capable of getting up to (feed themselves),” Loomis said.
Tera Young, Meals on Wheels coordinator and assistant director at the Bingham County Senior Center, said they are in need of volunteer drivers to deliver meals.
“All I need is two hours of their time,” Young said. “We provide everything else, including the car and the gas. (Volunteers) will go in to do a wellness check on our people and give them lunch. A lot of our home-bound seniors can’t get out and don’t have a close family. It’s important that we do a wellness check on them to make sure they’re all okay and if they need help with anything like making appointments. If we can help them with that we try.”
The Bingham County Senior Center is located at 20 E Pacific St. in Blackfoot. To learn more about the Bingham County Senior Center and the Wheels on Meals program, visit seniors4ever.com.
To learn more about volunteering at Meals on Wheels, call 208-785-4714 to talk to Young.