I deliver meals to shut-ins on holidays. I’ve been delivering meals on these days since 1990. I don’t get paid to do this, I volunteer a small portion of my holiday time-off to deliver the meals. Our senior centers do a great job of delivering meals on weekdays, but their meals aren’t available on weekends and holidays. That’s why I started doing it.

Carly is one of the people I deliver meals to. She rarely ventures from her bedroom as she can hardly walk. Transferring from her bed to a nearby chair proves difficult. I’ve never heard her complain about her lack of mobility, as she has learned to deal with it.

Carly has a closed circuit camera above her front door and a TV monitor mounted in her bedroom. She uses this setup to "monitor" the world outside her home. A television set is always turned on when I visit her. It’s usually tuned to a cable news station so she can keep up with world events. Carly is physically limited but she doesn’t let her frailties limit how much of the outside world she takes in.

When I arrive at her front door with a hot meal on holidays, I ring her door bell. She can see who’s at her front door with the closed circuit camera and monitor. Her front door is equipped with an electronic device so that when she presses a button in her bedroom it makes a buzzing sound and unlocks the front door so I can come in.

She has me set the meal on a small TV tray next to a chair in her bedroom where she can reach it when she gets out of bed and settles into her chair. If she is still in bed when I arrive, which she often is, it takes her several minutes to navigate to the nearby chair. She makes the short journey without need of my assistance. It’s all a part of her daily routine.

I don’t mind giving up my time on holidays to provide meals to people like Carly, as I find it has rewards for me, as well. It makes me feel good that I help people continue to live their life at-home amid familiar surroundings with just a little help.

I’m not sure that someone like Carly would ever make it out of bed on these lonely holidays except for the intervention caused by the delivery of a hot meal. It’s so hard for her to move around.

But, she doesn’t want to be served her meal in bed, she wants to sit up right to eat, even if her "kitchen table" is a chair and TV tray next to her bed. There is still a large amount of dignity and pride left in her small, frail body.

Twenty-six years ago when I first started to work with senior adults, someone called me from out-of-state and asked "What is my mom expected to do for a meal if your center is closed on holidays?" I was new then and I wasn’t sure how to answer her.

There wasn’t enough money to hire staff to work on weekends and holidays and there still isn’t enough. That’s why I volunteer, and get others to volunteer, to deliver meals on holidays. There are just so many people like Carly who need these meals.

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