Meals on Wheels is an organization that provides nutritious and balanced meals to disabled adults and homebound seniors in need nationwide. This service is vital in allowing seniors to live independently in their homes instead of moving into a nursing home. Those receiving meals are at risk from malnutrition or food insecurity because they face challenges preventing them from preparing meals for themselves.
Often, these challenges are caused by or made worse by disabilities. Adults with disabilities face unique challenges in their everyday lives, from preparing meals to difficulty accessing adequate medical care. Meals on Wheel strives to help community members live independently through a service that provides meals for disabled people and social interaction and check-ins.
What is a Disability?
Before we dive into this topic, let’s look at what a disability is. A disability can be defined as any condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult for a person to participate in activities or interact with the world around them. There are many different types of disabilities. These conditions may affect a person’s:
- Vision
- Thinking
- Movement
- Remembering
- Learning
- Social relationships
- Hearing
- Mental health
Each person and situation is different, which means that some people with disabilities can live independently, while others may rely on family, friends, and social institutions for help in their everyday lives. Some health conditions can be life-altering, and a good community should step up to help those in need.
Disabilities can be related to conditions present at birth, a developmental condition, an injury, or a longstanding medical condition.
How Does a Disability Affect Day-to-Day Life?
Many societal barriers in the United States make life challenging for adults with disabilities. Limited accessibility and inadequate accommodations can lead to social exclusion and financial hardships. These challenges affect all areas of a person’s life and can cause problems in the person’s physical and mental health.
Better education about disabilities, more accessibility, and better accommodations are ways a community can take steps toward helping those with disabilities. By helping those in need can build a better community for everyone.
Many disabled adults cannot go grocery shopping often enough because of a lack of transportation or financial hardships. They often cannot prepare daily meals for themselves or get meals from a community site. Because of the daily challenges these citizens face, they are at risk of malnutrition and food insecurity. They require help from family, friends, and their community to lead independent lives.
A food delivery service for disabled adults is one of many ways that a community can support those in need. Not only does it provide nutritional meals, but it also is an opportunity for a community to volunteer and financially contribute.
How Meals on Wheels Helps Adults with Disabilities
There are three main ways that Meals on Wheels provides help to adults with disabilities. These include home-delivered meals, daily social interactions, and daily check-ins.
Meal Delivery
Providing meals for disabled adults is vital to the independence of those in the program. A daily or even weekly free food delivery for disabled adults ensures recipients get nutritionally balanced meals that they may not have been able to provide for themselves. This service also helps ease the burden of food costs. When citizens are on a limited budget, there are times they may have to choose between paying utilities, buying necessary medication, or buying food. This is especially true in the face of recent increases in the cost of groceries all across the country.
The Meals on Wheels program asks that recipients pay a donation toward their meals but will never deny a meal based on the inability to pay. This ensures that even recipients struggling with finances will still receive food. Free meals for disabled adults will always be available through this program, ensuring that more people have the chance to live independently.
The meals delivered are nutritionally balanced, and the full rotating menu is designed with the help of a dietitian. This helps ensure that each meal contains the proper vitamins and nutrients. It also means the menu is rotated to include variety and seasonal specials.
Social Interaction
Many disabled adults on the Meals on Wheels routes are homebound and have limited social interaction on a day-to-day basis. Long-term social isolation can cause or worsen mental and physical health conditions. Depression and anxiety are just two common side effects of living in social isolation and feeling completely cut off from a community.
But the volunteer delivery drivers who bring home delivered meals for the disabled right to the doorsteps of the people on their route will always take the time to stop and chat. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person meetings weren’t always possible, many drivers would call recipients to ensure they got their daily chat in.
This practice of ensuring that each person on the route gets daily social interaction is invaluable for homebound adults without family to keep them company. This practice is also important for those who deliver the meals. Studies show that people who volunteer regularly tend to have less anxiety, less depression, and higher life satisfaction than those who don’t volunteer. As you can see, these assistance programs are great for all community members, not just those receiving meals.
Check-ins
In addition to providing social interaction, the volunteer delivery drivers also perform a quick check-in with each delivery. This is a vital service for seniors and disabled adults. Many accidents can happen in the home, and these volunteers can help in the case of a problem or provide information to the recipient to get repairs or other services done around the house.
Many of these people may need help with day-to-day tasks, and many volunteers will take the time to perform a quick fix, make a phone call, or even mow a lawn.
These check-ins are essential in the case of an emergency but can make all the difference in preventing long-term problems in the recipient’s home. Ensuring that the house is safe and well cared for is one of many ways that Meals on Wheels helps people stay in their own homes, rather than having to move into a care facility.
Meals on Wheels is more than meal delivery for disabled adults. It’s a program that supports every member of the community and helps each person live life to the fullest.
Meals on Wheels of Contra Costa
Meals on Wheels provides a vital service for their community. Their meal delivery services for disabled adults and seniors provide nutritious and balanced meals to homebound seniors and adults with disabilities in need nationwide. This allows those receiving meals to live independently in their own homes instead of having to move into a nursing home.
There are many challenges when living with a disability. This meal program works to prevent those challenges from becoming overwhelming by providing nutritious meals, social interaction, and a quick check-in with every delivery. Meals on Wheels is committed to helping members of the community live independently using free home-delivered meals for disabled adults.
Are there home-delivered meals in your community? Check out our website and see if you qualify for the program, or check out volunteer opportunities and see how you can help your community thrive.
