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Senior Centers try to keep food on the table

Icy weather may mean some senior citizens do not get hot meal delivery

By PAULA BARR
Daily Journal Staff Writer

Feb 23, 2008 - 05:06:01 CST

Winter storms such as those experienced recently mean many homebound senior citizens and people with disabilities do not get hot meal delivery.

When senior centers are closed in Farmington, Bismarck and Bonne Terre, hot meal delivery is canceled. In Park Hills, however, the senior center usually stays open, because city workers and two special volunteers deliver the meals.

“I’m very blessed,” said Holly Buxton, administrator of the Park Hills Senior Center. “Park Hills city crews deliver meals when the weather is bad, and Mary Lee and Harvey Faircloth have been taking the meals to people in Desloge for me.”

However on Friday, not enough cooks could make it into the Park Hills center to prepare the meals. Farmington, Bismarck and Bonne Terre centers were closed on Thursday and Friday.

In December, each of the four area senior centers delivered emergency packs to their homebound residents for days when hot food cannot be delivered. However, those are only designed to last a couple of days. In Farmington, where the senior center has had to close several times in recent weeks, most people who received the emergency packs already have eaten them.

“Normally, people don’t even use them in the wintertime, but this year is totally different,” said Mona Yates, administrator of the Farmington Senior Center.

Each pack has food that can last on the shelf for quite a while. They include cans of tuna, chili, fruits and vegetables; juice; powdered milk; graham crackers and similar items sealed with plastic in a tray, Yates said.

She typically provides homebound clients with two meal packs, with the reminder that they should save them for the days there is no hot meal delivery. Usually, two are enough to get through the winter.

It is too expensive to buy the meal packs more than once a year, but Kimberly Dollar, Bonne Terre Senior Center administrator, was able to order more than usual in December.

“We usually have two-pack emergency meals, but for a lot of my clients, I did three packs,” Dollar said. “For out-of-towners, I gave five packs.”

Dollar ordered the extra meals because she has no one to deliver hot meals on days when storms force the center to close.

“Our city right now is short staffed in our street department and a lot of my delivery drivers are seniors, so I don’t want to make them drive in bad weather,” Dollar explained.

Although many people assume the center closes when schools close for bad weather that is not the case, Dollar added.

Despite the lack of meal delivery Friday for the Park Hills Senior Center, homebound seniors should have been in good shape.

“My people should have one more pack, so they should be okay,” Buxton said.

Senior Center staff and volunteers check on their homebound residents throughout the winter to make sure they will be prepared in the event severe weather shuts the centers down. Bonne Terre residents who are in dire need of a meal after their emergency packs are gone may call City Hall at 573-358-2254. City staff will contact Dollar, who will make arrangements to get them food.

Yates said her clients who have no food should call the Division of Aging at 573-431-0361. They will contact her and she will get them a meal.”

Paula Barr is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-431-2010, ext. 172 or at pbarr@dailyjournalonline.com.

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