Meals on Wheels Dishes Up More Than Food

Aileene Jenson used to cook.

Spaghetti and meatballs was one of her specialties, and she used to bake pies into the night in the small kitchen of her west Ventura home.

But in the last few years, the 77-year-old Jenson has suffered several strokes, a broken hip, cracked ribs and a spinal-cord injury.

Jenson and her wheelchair-bound 89-year-old husband still manage to have one hot meal a day, though, thanks to a nonprofit organization that feeds hundreds of elderly residents in the county daily.

For those who can afford the $4.25-a-meal charge, the Ventura-based Meals on Wheels delivers to clients’ homes a freshly cooked repast consisting of a main dish, salad, dessert, bread, milk and fruit juice. For those who can’t afford it, Meals on Wheels finds sponsors or takes whatever the client can pay.

In Simi Valley, a much smaller program feeds 30 to 40 people daily for $3.25 a meal.

Although both organizations serve the hungry, they face different financial scenarios.

While the Simi Valley program is still accepting clients, the Ventura organization has a tight budget and is unable to feed many of the hungry people in the west county.

“We are operating on a shoestring,” said Vickie Herrera, director of the Ventura-based program. “We have turned down at least 30 people in the last few weeks because they can’t afford to pay and we can’t afford to feed them.”

Among them are a 5-foot, 4-inch woman who weighs 65 pounds and a man who has been admitted to the hospital three times in the last six weeks for malnutrition, she said.

“We are desperate for help. It’s an ongoing battle to keep the program going,” Herrera said. “It breaks my heart when I have to say no to people.”

Meals on Wheels is pieced together entirely through client payments, private donations and fund-raisers, officials with both agencies said.

Unlike other organizations that feed people on a temporary basis, Meals on Wheels feeds people as long as they are in need.

The Ventura-based office, which feeds about 250 to 280 people daily, operates with an annual budget of about $168,000 and with 25 volunteers and five part-time employees.

The smaller Simi Valley office, which is run by a group of senior citizens, has an annual budget of about $32,000 and operates with a dozen volunteers and one part-time worker.

At the Ventura office, the food is purchased in bulk from discount warehouses and is prepared daily by Jesus Carranza, who has been with Meals on Wheels for nine years.

Carranza begins cooking at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. He follows a menu put together by a nutritionist.

Because several of the people who receive the meals have special diets, Carranza cannot use salt, pepper, oil and hot spices.

“To add flavor and make the food more interesting, I use a lot of herbs,” Carranza said.

By 10 a.m., Carranza, with the help of volunteers, packs the food and has it ready to go.

That’s when volunteer drivers such as John Collins, a retired Ventura resident, take over.

After loading 50 meals into his 1980 Volkswagen truck, Collins starts his Oxnard route.

“This is such a worthwhile project because if weren’t for this one meal a day, most of those people would not eat,” said Collins, who has been volunteering for the last seven years.

Like the other drivers, Collins does more than drop off the bags of food at clients’ front doors.

If no one answers his knock, Collins checks on the welfare of the recipient, first by talking with neighbors and then by notifying his supervisors, who in turn contact relatives or hospitals.

Recipients are grateful for more than the food. Knowing that a driver will be visiting five days a week--the two weekend meals are delivered on Friday--gives clients a sense of security.

“Meals on Wheels is a gift from heaven for people like us,” said Jenson, who lives with her husband and whose only relative lives in Georgia. “It’s good to know that there is someone out there who truly cares and looks out for us.”

The Jensons, like many elderly people in the county, live on an $800-a-month Social Security check and most of that is spent on housing, medication and utilities. Little is left for food.

“We don’t know what we would do if it weren’t for them,” said Jenson, who has depended on the organization for the last 17 years. “We have had a very hard time, and when we did not have sponsors, we used to share one meal between the two of us. But when they found out that, they began to give us two meals a day.”

Not all of Meals on Wheels’ clients are long-term.

“If it weren’t for them, I don’t know how I would be able to get back on my feet,” said 63-year old Betty Ivey, who has been in and out of the hospital for the last nine months. “I feel much better when I eat well, and soon I hope to be able to cook my own meals.”

Ivey, a former volunteer with Meals on Wheels, said she paid for the meals for two months, but then she had to cancel because she could no longer afford it.

“They knew that I still needed the food but couldn’t pay for it, so they continued bringing it every day,” Ivey said. “I’m forever grateful, and I hope to get well soon so I can cook myself.”

In Simi Valley, volunteers at the city’s Senior Center deliver 10,000 meals a year.

On a recent morning, cook Bernie Cangelosi whipped up the day’s hearty repast: Salisbury steak with gravy, noodles and spinach.

Volunteers quickly scooped the food into aluminum trays, sealed them tight and slipped them into an insulated carrier.

Then driver Dennis Cummings sprang into action, loading his truck with the carrier and a box of fruit, milk and cookies.

Cummings, 67, said he looks forward to seeing the clients he serves twice a week.

“It’s a pleasure, really, to be able to do it,” he said. “The people we serve are really good folks.”

The recipients of Meals on Wheels seem equally fond of Cummings.

At one of his first stops, Connie Santoro greeted Cummings with a big smile. “I look forward to seeing him,” she said. “I know I have a visitor every day.” Still recovering from hip surgery, Santoro signed up for the program six months ago at her daughter’s urging.

“My daughter worries about me. She wants to make sure I’m getting a good meal,” Santoro said. “For me, it’s a meal delivered to my door. What more could I ask?”

At the next stop, Alameda Plenger gives Cummings a hug and a handful of candy. “Take your vitamins,” she said playfully.

Plenger, one of the program’s longstanding clients, depends on Meals on Wheels as her main food supply. “I’ve been in this program for a long time, 10 years or more,” she said. “I can stretch a meal to both lunch and dinner. I don’t eat as much as I used to.”