By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Feeding 800 senior citizens is as easy as pie for the Wood County Committee on Aging.
But when required to come up with an additional 11,200 shelf-stable meals for those seniors, the recipe got much more complicated.
On March 12, the senior centers across the county informed their regular noon patrons that lunch would for now be served at home. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all meals would be delivered to seniors’ homes.
As seniors were advised to stay home, the Wood County Committee on Aging saw a 27% jump in home-delivered meals – sitting right now at just over 700, but expected to continue growing, according to Denise Niese, executive director of the Wood County Committee on Aging.
That was manageable, as long as the seniors didn’t mind a shake up in their regular menus.
“We’re able to do the meals. It just may be different than the seniors expect,” she said. For example today, the crowd-pleasing baked bean salad is being substituted with three-bean salad.
But then, Niese was notified that in order to meet requirements for federal funding, the senior center would have to also provide a two-week supply of shelf-stable food to the seniors. Niese inquired if the foods could be frozen, but was told no, since some seniors may not have much freezer space.
So last week, Niese and her staff started brainstorming.
“Where can we get that much canned food?” she said.
With the goal of 14 meals for each of the projected 800 seniors – the menu expanded to 11,200 shelf-stable meals.
Niese sent local Kroger stores a list of what was needed and paid shelf price for the canned protein, carbs, vegetables and fruits.
Assisted by Lake Township businessman Ed Nagle, half of the food was trucked in. But then Niese got the call from the corporate office of Kroger that the other half of the order had been halted – and no more would be headed to Wood County.
“We were kind of in a pickle,” Niese said.
In preparation for putting together 11,200 meals, Niese had already bought 800 boxes and scheduled volunteers to create an assembly line to pack them.
“I felt like I hit a wall,” she said. “So I started making some phone calls.”
She cooked up a plan to explain her dilemma to the offices of State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, State Rep. Haraz Ghanbari and U.S. Rep. Bob Latta. And soon, the canned goods were back on the delivery list.
“We are going to get all the items on our list,” Niese said. “But they told me this is the last bulk order they will be doing.”
Niese expects all the canned goods to be here sometime next week. Teams of volunteers will be recruited to box the items at the Junior Fair Building, secured for the project by Bernie Scott.
