Free this summer? Meals on Wheels needs help to get food to the most vulnerable

Garnet Ward has been delivering food with WoodGreen Community Service's Meals on Wheels program for eight years, but lately, his routes have gotten longer.

"I used to have routes that were normally 10 deliveries, 12 deliveries, and then it got up to 21 for a little while and they managed to cut it back to 16. Today I think I'm at 18 or 19," said Ward.

"It's hard to keep the meals hot to the end of the route when there's that many deliveries to make."

Those longer routes are a result of volunteer shortages facing the organization. Normally the WoodGreen's Meals on Wheels program needs about 80 volunteers for a full week — right now, it has 30.

Adriano Murarotto, the Director of Senior Programs at WoodGreen, says he worries the lack of volunteers, in addition to the surge in demand, will lead to a slowdown in services and more people being wait-listed.

"Our fear is that there will be more people going hungry that won't be serviced," he said.

Fewer volunteers after return to office

Murarotto says the number of volunteers dropped after people who predominantly worked from home during the pandemic went back to the office. As a result, they've had to supplement deliveries with paid staff at times, which can become costly.

"Meals on Wheels is a volunteer model and that's how it's been since post World War II. And so it's always relied on a roster of volunteers, a community of volunteers and it's unnaturally been changed to an employee model just to make up for the the empty routes," he said.

With summer vacation coming up, Murarotto says the situation will only get worse.

"With the current economic situation, there's many people in the community who just can't afford takeout anymore. They can't afford other meal services that are privatized," Murarotto said.

Murarotto says more funding for the program would help them greatly from addressing the cost of food to paying people at times to help make deliveries.

CBC Toronto reached out to the Ministry of Health who funds Meals on Wheels Programs across the province. A spokesperson for the Minister of Health told CBC Toronto in a statement that they are "accelerating investments to bring funding in 2023–24 up to $569 million, including nearly $300 million to support contract rate increases to stabilize the home and community care workforce, including immediate funding to help support community programs like Meals on Wheels."

'More than just a meal'

Dennis Graham, 71, has been a client with Meals on Wheels for 27 years. He says the volunteers have played a big role in keeping him alive.

"They keep an eye out for me, I have a condition," Graham said. "There's more people that need to get in touch with Meals on Wheels."

"There's a few people in this building that need Meals on Wheels, they're starving."

Murarotto says the demand for meals and volunteers is provincewide. Meals on Wheels services 125 agencies across the province, and serves approximately 3.5 million meals a year. At WoodGreen, the organization delivers about 1250 meals per week.

Murarotto says there's many ways people can get involved with volunteering.

"Typically the shift will be from 10:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m.," he said. Depending on a volunteer's availability, they could help out one day a week or even one day a month.

Murarotto says WoodGreen provides job training, and volunteers just need to know how to navigate the streets to find addresses, then return with updates on the clients.

"It's more than just a meal... We also ask for an update on each of the clients," he said. "How are they doing? If there's any services that we can provide from housing to social supports," he said.

"The volunteers just offer more than just a delivery service and that's the unique value of a community service."