Food and Hunger During A Pandemic: Senior Center Provides Critical Services

GPB is exploring the issues of food and hunger in Georgia during the coronavirus pandemic through a video series featuring stories of those who are being affected, and those who are trying to help.

Over 300,000 Georgia seniors live at or below the poverty line, and food insecurity and access to nutritional food has become critical during the pandemic.

When county senior centers closed in March, demand for home deliveries skyrocketed as congregate meal services stopped. Rockdale County saw a 260% increase in their home delivery service, more commonly known as “Meals on Wheels.”

For those who are willing and able to venture out, curb side pick-up is also available.

Susan Morgan, Senior Services Division Manager:  We are putting shelf stable meals together to send out to our Meals on Wheels clients this morning. 

Ambreia Shipley, Case Manager:  A lot of my home bound, they don't have access to food, they're not able to get out and get food and then with their age and the virus affecting, you know, the seniors they're really not willing to go out. 

Susan Morgan, Senior Services Division Manager We serve at our senior center.. we serve breakfast and lunch and they are welcome to come and receive meals. They can receive up to two per day at our senior center. And it's also that they are asked to do a contribution for that and it's based on their income level. So some people may have a zero contribution and some people may have a couple of dollars. 

That's one thing that we did have to make a change of, is because we were trying to limit the impact of being close to a person. And what we did was we limited it to a special delivery once a week so that we could provide the meals for them for the entire week. 

Raye Allen Jones, Rockdale County Senior:  Yes. Everything's going OK. Yeah. Here they go, pretty good, yeah.

After what's going on, man, I stay at home more. So you get up in age… Eighty years old. You’ve got and try to take care of yourself because this virus that going around now, it is something else. The food is a big hit and the only thing I have to do is put it in the microwave and heat up and eat it. And the food I appreciate it. They bring the food here. I'm enjoying it. 

Susan Morgan, Senior Services Division Manager:  The frozen box has five meals in it. It also has milk. It has a loaf of bread in there that they really enjoy and it's all in a frozen packet so that they can take it out and thaw it when they eat, when they want to receive the meal. 

So if I can show you one of our chef's stable meals, this kind of gives you an idea of what is in it. So the idea behind this is that a person could receive this particular box and without much effort that they could have food for themselves. 

And then you have some canned goods, you have juice, spaghetti and meatballs, and it would just be items. And this is for one person. So, if we have a husband and wife that are in the home, then they would receive two boxes, one for each of them. 

Ambreia Shipley, Case Manager:  Good morning Ms. Mitchell. How are you doing?

Michelle Mitcham, Rockdale County Senior Good. How are you? 

The Boxes have a lot of dry goods that you can keep forever. So that makes it great, you know? So, it's been pretty important. I'm glad they come. 

Susan Morgan, Senior Services Division Manager:  On Tuesdays we do a congregate meal drive-through and we have meals out there so anybody that is registered in our program, they can come by and get a seven meal pack to take home with them. 

Matilda Beasley, Rockdale County Senior:  It helps with everything. With the virus like it is you don't want to go out anywhere. So now you come here and get it and go back home and be safe. 

Susan Morgan, Senior Services Division Manager:  We've gotten lots of thank you notes from people. They're very sweet. Thank you's about letting us know how much they appreciate it. 

Rockdale Senior Thank you, sir. Thank you.