A group of students have committed to delivering Meals on Wheels—minus the wheels, on every Wednesday of the year.
Rain or shine, the group of kids from Douglas Park Community Elementary help pack up the lunches and walk them to nearby residences.
The students are part of a leadership group at Douglas Park Elementary, and are supervised by the school youth care worker, Miss. Heidi and education assistant, Miss. Lori.
One of the students, Lucas, confirmed that the meals they deliver look tasty.
“If I was a senior, I’d love to have that food delivered to me.”
Another student, Elijah, added that delivering the food makes him ‘feel good.’
“It makes seniors happy and they appreciate that.”
When the boys went out for their weekly delivery on Oct. 31, it was one of their recipient’s birthday.
With that in mind, they packed a birthday card with the lunch and sung ‘happy birthday’ upon arrival.
“We deliver meals to them and then it makes me happy to see them like that,” said Elijah.
Lucas said the seniors were ‘surprised’ when they first saw young people at their doorstep.
“The first time they were kind of surprised that we were school students and we were bringing food for them and taking time off our school time.”
Miss. Heidi said the group learns a variety of skills from Meals on Wheels such as relationship-building, socialization and commitment.
Meals on Wheels coordinator, Grace Godard, said the program always needs more helping hands.
“We really need spare volunteers because sometimes people get sick, or goes on holidays or anything can happen. We need a list of people to take over at that point.”
The Meals on Wheels program delivers along various routes from Monday to Friday.
“People count on their meal. That’s the number one reason we are here is to give them their meals. That may be their only human contact with someone that day. It’s a way to check on them and see they are doing okay,” said Godard.
Langley Meals on Wheels has been delivering to the City and Township since 1979.
For more information on Meals on Wheels or to volunteer, visit https://lmow.ca, call 604-533-1679 or e-mail info@lmow.ca.