ADRC of Eau Claire County needs more volunteers for Meals on Wheels program

EAU CLAIRE — “You can Google it anywhere. The aging population is growing,” said Linda Struck, director of the Aging and Disability Center of Eau Claire County.

“The population behind the Boomers is smaller, but the Boomers (are) really that age group (which) has grown so much.”

She praised the generation for their commitment to volunteering, but said that as they grow older and become less able to volunteer and more in need of the services themselves, this causes strain. As the demand for service grows, “we don’t have as many volunteers to pull from.”

She said that in the last five years, there’s been a “16 percent reduction in volunteer time, and it’s because the volunteers are getting older and need the help themselves. We need more volunteers.”

Speaking right after she and two other staff members ran three Meals on Wheels routes during their lunch break, Struck said, “We didn’t have enough volunteers to deliver meals, so we (took) our lunch time to go deliver those meals to ensure that everybody gets a meal, regardless of volunteers or not. So, today, the route I drove for, there were 13 homes that I stopped at to deliver a meal to.”

She said that currently, the number of volunteers they have would equate to 5.5 full-time individuals.

“(We’re) talking 20 plus volunteers a day needed to deliver the meals,” she added. “We serve anywhere from 500 to 650 meals a day.”

She also said it wasn’t “just about delivering a meal. It’s also about making contact with that person, to (do a) safety check, because if (they) don’t answer the door, we see something’s up (and) follow up with their emergency contact.”

Meals on Wheels is one of several services and volunteer opportunities the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Eau Claire offers.

“We focus on three big areas,” said Struck, “one being our resource center. We provide resources for people who are 60 and older and adults living with a disability. People will call, and we are either going to give them a resource for that or we might provide a service for that.”

For more information or to volunteer, people can eauclaireadrc.org or call 715-839-4735.

“I just want to reiterate (that) we have the best volunteers in town,” she said. “Our volunteers are awesome. The ones we have are so dedicated and giving, (but) I feel like volunteerism is down everywhere. We’re just one of them, and I think that could all relate to the population getting older.”