Meals on Wheels struggles as need rises among Maine seniors

By Meg Haskell

BDN Staff

Meals on Wheels, the popular program that delivers free, nutritious meals to homebound seniors, is struggling to meet a surge in demand in Eastern Maine.

Photo by Gabor Degre/BDN

MEALS ON WHEELS — Frozen food to be delivered bY Meals on Wheels volunteers in Belfast Tuesday.

“If you called and asked for this service, I would have to tell you I’m very sorry, but there’s a waiting list,” said Rob Crone, director of nutrition and auxiliary services at Eastern Area Agency on Aging in Bangor, which administers the program. “We just don’t have any money.”

According to EAAA reports, in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, the agency delivered nearly 85,000 meals to 804 homebound residents in the territory it serves — Penobscot, Piscataquis, Washington and Hancock counties. That’s about twice as many as in the previous fiscal year, said Crone.

“And it could easily double in the coming year,” he said. Maine’s rapidly aging population ensures a growing demand for the meals program, he said, “and this economy is just not good for seniors.”

People ages 60 and over may qualify for Meals on Wheels if they are homebound and not able to prepare their own meals. There is no income requirement. Federal guidelines prohibit agencies from charging for the meals, but some, including EAAA, encourage a per-meal “donation” for clients who can afford it.

Few clients actually donate anything for their meals, Crone said, and those who do are unable to pay much. Donations vary widely by county, from an average of $0.13 per meal in Washington County to an average of $2.04 per meal in Penobscot County.

There are already 20 people on a waiting list at EAAA, and Crone expects the names to mount up rapidly. “Sometimes they’ll have a relative who can help them with meals,” Crone said. “But seniors often don’t want to ask family for personal help because they don’t want to be seen as a burden.”  

EAAA executive director Noelle Merrill said federal funding for Meals on Wheels — including the cost of food, preparation and delivery — has been flat since 2004. Her overall budget for the program is $1.2 million, including about $60,000 in state funding. Because of the surge in demand and the cost of home delivery in such a large geographic territory, the program racked up a $50,000 deficit last year, Merrill said.

In recent years, Meals on Wheels has changed in an attempt to maintain services by streamlining how they provide their services.

“We used to deliver a hot meal to each senior’s doorstep five days a week,” Merrill said. “Now we deliver five frozen meals once a week.”

But that hasn’t been enough.

“We’ve just had to shut it down,” she said. “No one new can come on until we fix the problem.”

EAAA has launched a fundraising campaign to help meet demand. According to the campaign website, the fundraiser has so far raised just $1,342 toward a $40,000 goal, but that is expected to get a boost from Brewer-based Darling’s Auto Group.

“We look for charities to partner with to help out local communities,” said company president Jay Darling. Darling could not immediately provide details, but said that each vehicle sold in the month of October generated a donation to Meals on Wheels programs throughout Maine. It wasn’t immediately clear what the donation would be to the EAAA program.

“Our goal was to donate 30,000 meals statewide,” Darling said.

Even with a generous donation from Darling’s, more is still needed to bridge the shortfall.

“This is a wonderful thing they are doing at a time when every meal helps,” Crone said, “but it is a stopgap and does not change the need for local communities to step up and help take care of their senior residents.”

It costs about $1040 to provide meals for one person for a year. Crone suggested that individuals who want to support the program might “adopt” an eligible senior for the coming year by donating that amount. He also said that if each of the 136 municipalities served by EAAA were to sponsor just one client per year, “our problems would be over.”