Gas prices sting Meals on Wheels

By Stephanie Kassab
Published: June 6, 2008

On the average day, 200 people receive a hot meal because of drivers who volunteer their time with the local Meals on Wheels program. Yet with skyrocketing gasoline prices, the program has found it difficult to recruit volunteers and has even lost some drivers completely.

As the price for a gallon of gas nears four dollars, drivers are finding it harder to complete their routes. The program currently has 200 volunteers and is looking to bring in 20 new people to divide the routes, which would help ease the burden of high gas prices.

“We’re trying to address [drivers’] needs by making sure we keep their routes short so they don’t have to spend money on gas,” Mandy Hoy, the program‘s executive director, said. “People who are nice enough to donate their time … we don’t want it to [gouge] their pocketbooks.”

The program currently delivers meals five days a week to Charlottesville and the urban ring of Albemarle County, traveling as far north as Airport Road as well as the Crozet, Scottsville and Esmont areas. While the program does not reimburse drivers and volunteers, their service is tax deductible.

According to the Meals on Wheels Association of America, the drop in the number of volunteers is a nationwide problem.

“It’s a natural part of a volunteer organization that you lose people from time to time,” said Delia Laux, president of the local program’s Board of Directors. “But the gas pricing has made it worse.”

According to a survey conducted by the association in May, 58 percent of Meals on Wheels programs reported that they had lost volunteers because of the increase in gas prices. About 49 percent of programs reported that the increase in gas prices had caused them to eliminate certain meal-delivery routes and consolidate their meal services.

“It’s a crisis,” said Peggy Ingraham, the association’s senior vice president for public policy. “There’s no other word to use.”

Slightly more than 38 percent of the Meals on Wheels programs reported they were forced to change the type of meals they serve. Rather than serving a hot meal daily, programs nationwide are delivering a hot meal a couple of times a week with frozen meals the rest of the week.

“To lose that human connection is extraordinarily significant,” Ingraham said.

Replacing hot meals with frozen ones would be a “last-resort” situation, Laux said.

Ingraham also noted that even programs that did not lose volunteers reported that their drivers had begun to ask for reimbursements or stipends. Many programs reported that they were experiencing a high level of difficulty recruiting new volunteers.

Rising fuel costs have impacted the cost of food as well, Ingraham noted. The cost of some food items has increased by 50 percent and one program in the nation reported that the cost of milk had increased by 33 percent, she said.

According to Hoy, trying to provide a meal at a lower cost is not an option.

“I’m not sure we can give a quality meal and go cheaper,” Hoy said. “We want to keep it a good, healthy and substantive meal.”

The meals typically include a hot entree with two sides, salad, fresh fruit, milk or juice and a roll and costs about $5.50 to prepare. In the local area, about 9 percent of those who received meals in May paid for them in full. About 14 percent paid a partial amount, the Jefferson Area Board for Aging paid for 12 percent of meals and 65 percent of recipients paid nothing.

“Our clients are people who are already living on the edge and are at risk,” Hoy said. “We don’t want for them to pay the price of our economy being where it is.”

Meals are delivered to people of all backgrounds, ages and socioeconomic levels; the only criterion to qualify for a meal is medical necessity.

“If you can’t fix your own meal and no one is there to fix it, we’ll fix it for you,” Hoy said.

Hoy, Ingraham and Laux all urged people to volunteer their time. The local program asks volunteers to donate slightly more than one hour of their time a week.

“The folks out there who need home-delivered meals are invisible because they are behind closed doors,” Ingraham said. “They’re relying on us.”