March 27, 2018 • 47 mins
Meals on Wheels is one of the great charitable organizations in the world, providing much-needed nutrition for elderly people in need. It also has a pretty interesting backstory, starting in multiple places in different countries almost simultaneously. Learn all about this great group of folks in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant's just the two of us.
Today we had guest producer Tyler and here for a second.
He pressed your cord and left and it's just us.
(00:24):
It's cool. One of us needs to get our index
finger working so we can do that. Well. Remember we
used to say we were going to replace Jerry with
one of those dipping birds. Yeah, is that what they're called?
Dipping birds? Don't know, I just I just remember my
grandmother had one where the bird would dip its beak
in the water. All we have to do is arrange
(00:46):
it so we can press the space bar. Uh. Well,
we should be better than this, Chuck, because this is
a very nice, wonderful humane episode. Humane and human even
and human and it ties. Yeah, this is one of
our what we like to do, a little awareness shows
(01:06):
every now and then and meals on wheels, which, by
the way, for the past two days in my head,
I've been going meals on wheels. What is that? You remember?
It may have been a local thing when I was
a kid. That was a thing it was called World
of Wheels. It was like, I don't know if it
(01:26):
was a car show or like one of those monster
truck things, but it was. That's what they used to do,
is World of Wheels. I got you. That's funny you
say that, because I've had my own thing in my head.
There was a thrill Kill Cult song that was in
the movie Cool World called Sex on Wheels. So I've
been going meals on wheels, meals on whales, that's been
(01:52):
That's weird though, that we each have just kind of
had some weird loop in our heads. Maybe that helps
us research maybe and maybe meals on eels And we'll
get to the funding part of it at the end.
But maybe they would have better chances getting federal funding
if they had a cool theme song. Yeah, like by
the thrill Kill culture. That would surprise everybody, I think. So.
(02:15):
So we are talking meals on wheels today just just
to do our do diligence upfront. We just want to
tell everybody in case you don't know what that is,
but I'm sure most people do. Meals on wheels is
a meal delivery program here in the States and Canada, Australia.
I think it's all over the place where if you
(02:38):
are usually if you're a senior citizen, senior adult not
quite sure what they go by these days, and you
are homebound basically where you're able to care for yourself
in your home, but you're getting up there in years
and you haven't um gone into an assistant care facility,
but you're still you don't have a out of contact,
(03:00):
you might not have family around. What Meals on Wheels
does is they bring you a meal once a day,
five days a week. She'll lunch and uh say, hey,
how are you doing. Feeling good? Good? Okay, well we'll
see tomorrow. Enjoy your meal and um. Just that little
simple act of doing that, just apparently in research bears
(03:21):
this out completely changes the life and and extends the
life expectancy of people in that situation. Yeah, and it's
not just uh, I mean, we'll get to some of
the other things they do. But the main three pronged
reason for the home visit is the meal, like you said,
the visit, and then the final thing is the safety
check component, which is geez, uh, mr muldoon, you have
(03:45):
a wire hanging out of your wall. Uh, and it's sparking,
So let me see if I can get some help
with you, get some help for you on that, sir,
right exactly, that that could that could turn bad on
you exactly. So there's this there's this whole idea that
just by showing up at somebody's house with a meal, um,
you can you can just really vastly help improve their lives.
(04:09):
And when I think about like meals on wheels or
when I researched this stuff, it's like there's no like,
if you if you've lost faith in humanity, just look
into meals on wheels like it. It it cancels out
so much bad in the world, you know, and it
takes like this this population that here in the West,
Like it's very easy to become disconnected from your family
(04:33):
because you're you're offspring. Your kids as some people call them,
they grow up, they get their own jobs, they move
around where highly mobile culture Western civilization is um and
you can find yourself basically alone. Like if you're friends
with your neighbor and your neighbor dies or moves away,
you don't know the new younger neighbors, maybe they don't
(04:53):
care about you. Um, you can find yourself isolated and
being socially isolated is a huge problem. So the idea
that there's people out there who are strangers to you,
who will come to your house and bring you a
meal to make sure you're taken care of. That's there's
humanity right there. In a nutshell. Yeah, we had Um
she's moved away now, but are are older? Um and jeez,
(05:14):
I had no idea how old she was. She was
one of those ladies, Miss Jesse, our neighbor, who could
have been seventy or a hundred and six. I have
no idea. Is she the one with the goats? No? No, no,
we fed the goats again this morning. By the way,
Um No. Miss Jesse and Mr Otis lived next door.
Mr Otis had daily dialysis passed away um, which was
(05:37):
very sad because he was just great. Um. But Miss
Jesse was really nice. It took us a little while
to earn her trust. But um, she had her daughter Connie.
He would come by and get her what she needs
and bring your groceries. But we would always offer, you know,
we're going to store. Miss Jesse need anything, and she
would never take us up on it. But I think
just us talking to her on a daily basis because
(06:01):
she was one of these that would like you know,
she she would open the blinds every time she heard
a noise in the neighborhood. She was very on it,
which was great for when we went out town because
Miss Jesse was the best like watchdog you could asked for.
Did she give you a list of like teenagers that
she spotted while you were gone whenever you return home. No,
she just said that that ne'er do well, that guy
is up to no good. Anyway, She's a very sweet lady,
(06:24):
and I think eventually we earned her trust, and I
really got the sense that just us having a conversation
with her from for five minutes getting out of the
car meant a lot to her. Um, that's apparently what
the research shows that that kind of thing has a
pronounced impact on the life of somebody who has become
socially isolated. But she moved away. Yeah, she's like nuts
(06:47):
to those two. Yeah, someone bought her house. Uh, but
she's you know, she's doing great. The good end of
that story. She did not pass away. She moved away, right, gotcha?
So where did she move? Did she moved to an
assistant care facility? And she moved into an other house.
Does she moved in with her daughter. I think she
may have moved in with her daughter. But it was funny,
like she meant a lot to us, but it was
sort of like so long, suckers, we didn't get it.
(07:09):
Wasn't that like a cheerful goodbye. All of a sudden,
we're like you're moving. She's like, yep, sold my house
and she was out of there right, So shuts the
U haul gets in, flips you the bird on the way. Yeah.
So well then this one's for miss Jesse. Yeah there
you go. Um okay, so well, let's talk a little
bit of history. It's about meals on wheels because despite
(07:31):
how utterly human it is, um, it was started by robots.
It was robots who are trying to win us over
before they take over. Very strange, um the the it
hasn't been around for as long as you think, although
I think that it came about right around the time
when the need first arose because I was doing some
(07:54):
research and it seems like with industrialization and the rise
of like factory work, that is are a lot of
the the schism between our traditional society that was usually
a grarian based and this new modern society we live
in really began, and around that time is probably when
(08:14):
you would have started to have found some isolated seniors,
is like a growing population. Yeah, that makes sense because
I found it interesting that, uh, and we'll dig into
the history here, but I found it interesting that it
seemed to pop up within about a fifteen year period
in many countries around the world, and not because they
had heard of it. You know, It's not like they
(08:35):
read on the internet in nineteen fifty four that hey,
someone in England is doing this. So it I think
that has a lot of merit to it, that the
need was there kind of all at the same time,
yeah and all. Yeah, and it also kind of underscores
just how basically human and idea this is. You know, Alright,
so World War two raging England, being bombed, neighborhood and
(09:00):
regions being devastated. Uh, it became clear that people, you know,
like literally just their home or kitchen were destroyed, so
they couldn't do simple things like cook the meals they're
used to providing for their family. The Woman's Volunteer Service
for Civil Defense came around and they said, you know what,
we're gonna start delivering some some meals, some home cooked
(09:24):
meals to people that whose houses have been devastated, who
can't cook for themselves right now. They delivered them at
first in baby carriages, which is where the that's the wheels,
that's where it came from. Yeah, that that's what everybody
around town called it. Um. They called it meals on wheels,
pretty neat. It was just just the It was not
capitalized or anything like that. It was just kind of
(09:45):
like the the slang term what the cool kids called.
About ten years later or so in Philly, uh in Pennsylvania,
woman named Margaret Toy who became the first director of
Meals on Wheels in the United States, she organized something
called the Platter Angels and just by coincidence, there were
some British students in Philly doing some social work at
(10:08):
a community center where Mrs Toy volunteered, and they said, hey,
this is a lot like what we've got going on
in England with the Meals on wheels. Ditch that platter
angles angles angles there thinking of Joseph Angles. Ditch the
Platter Angels name and call it meals on wheels. And
I don't think they said ditch that name, but the
(10:28):
does would be some pushy exchange theory. Uh you know
those pushy British exchange students. They're the worst state. Surrounded
poor Mrs Toy and like poked her in the shoulder
and like blue cigarettes smoke in our face. Hey, platter
angel right out of her hand. So that's how it
(10:49):
became meals on Wheels in the United States. And then
over the next like twenty and thirty years in the
US they started popping up all over the place. They did.
And here's what you're kind of referring to earlier. So
that was that same year in September in Um, South Australia,
which is where Adelaide is. Shout out to Adelaide where
(11:11):
the summerton man is from, right, Um, a woman named
Doris Taylor came up with the same exact thing, and
from what I understand, called it meals on wheels as well.
Is that correct? Yeah? She was something else man Um.
She was disabled. The best I can discern is she
(11:31):
had a fall when she was seven which gave her
a limp, and then another fall when she was eleven
that paralyzed her from the waist down permanently. Like that
was it. That was it. She was wheelchair bound from
that point on. Yep, from that point on, and despite
the fact that as an eleven year old in a
wheelchair for life, she had a big heart and and
(11:54):
realized that there was a need to provide for people
in her community, just like was was going on in
American Britain, and said, hey, what about bringing a meal
to people? And then in September, like you said, meals
on wheels of South Australia, Uh, which I had to
look up on a map. I figured it was in
the South. Yeah, and in Australia it is. But it's
(12:15):
a big chunk um, a big chunk of land at least,
I don't know how populated it is. Well, if Adelaide's there,
it's great. Well, yeah, of course it is. But that
has grown. She actually lived long enough to see that
grow into a huge organization. And um, I don't know,
they have these all over the world and all over
(12:36):
the country here in America. But we just wanted to
shout her out specifically for you know, being disabled herself
and and going on to do like just this amazing thing.
It's it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, And and so you think, like, okay,
big deal, she's a wheelchair abound and she can she
can use her arms, she can juggle that kind of stuff. Nope,
she had rheumatoid arthritis, crippling rheumatoid arthritis on top of
(12:59):
all of the us and so she was just basically
she had no use of any of her limbs and
she still was out there raising like she had. She
used her mind too to get other people to get
off their duffs and help people less fortunate she was.
She was an amazing person. It's pretty great. Five thousand
(13:20):
clients in South Australia now ninety branches. Uh and this
is all because of Doris Taylor and then Chuck. So
speaking of South Australia, you were you were onto something
huge chunk land, not very populated. Adelaide is the capital
with just under one and a half million people, and
that's the population of South Australia as a whole. Well,
(13:42):
there you have it. There's a lot of unused land there.
Should we take a break? Oh sure, all right, let's
do it. Okay, So meals on wheels starts springing up
(14:13):
as like these community programs all over the world. Right,
just because there's a few spiritually aligned do gooders out
there who have this good idea, and it just spreads
and spreads and spreads. But the thing that they have
in common, aside from the basic we bring a meal
once a day to someone who can't get out of
their house, they also had in common that they were community,
(14:36):
grassroots organizations. That's how they that's how they operated, that's
how they were funded. That was it, and that was
the case until I believe nineteen with the Older Americans Act,
when the FEDS finally said, all right, okay, a good
idea is a good idea, we'll cough up some money
for your Meals on wheels programs. And it's been that
(14:57):
way ever since. Customarily, the Older Americans Act provides about
thirty percent of funding for the Meals on Wheels programs
in America, I should say, and then the rest. It's
like it's an early public part private partnership, where the
rest is meant to come from state and local governments,
private donations, foundations, grants, wherever they can get money from.
(15:21):
But the the the Meals on Wheels program is meant,
ever since nineteen sixty five in the US, to have
been able to rely on over a third of its
annual budget coming from the US government to provide that
foundation so they can get the rest. Yeah, so that,
like you said, is specifically because the O A A
and delivered through the Office of Health and Human Services
(15:44):
and got a shout out corporate donations because I feel
like they, you know, people like to bag on big corporations,
but um, part of their funding does come from corporations
chipping in. And then you talked about grants. There are
three specific uh block grant programs. Uh the Community Development
Block grant, the Social Services Block grant, and Community Services
(16:07):
Block Grant. And just put a pin in that because
that will come up again later. So um, again, the
most of the funding comes from things other than the
federal government, right, And and that there's another way that
these this program is funded and this is kind of
surprising to me, but it's from the people who are
(16:28):
the recipients of this aid as well. It is and
this is actually another Doris Taylor innovation, at least in Australia.
Before it was well you're this is charity, so here
just take this, she was like, yes, we're gonna incorporate volunteers,
and the volunteers don't need to be paid obviously, but
we still need to pay for the food. We still
(16:49):
need to pay workers to prepare the meals, and so
obviously some of that could be donated, but yeah, sure
not all of it. You just can't rely on that
always to be donated. You could kind of always rely
that there's gonna be somebody there who will fill in
for somebody who didn't show up that day in meal delivery, right,
or you can go do that yourself. But the more
(17:10):
skilled stuff, you need to be able to pay somebody
so that they will show up and do this stuff. Right.
So the idea of having the people who can afford
it pay for the meal, UM, that's that is kind
of innovative and it helps keep the program going. The
thing is is if you can't pay for the meal
you get that you get it for free. Well, and
(17:31):
then there's a that's a continuum. There's a sliding scale
between I can I can I can afford a little
bit for this meal, um, here's here's some and then
I think the people who are able to physically able to,
but are financially unable to afford a meal UM are
asked to volunteer to be a part of the Meals
(17:51):
on Wheels program. Themselves. Yeah, I'm a big You can
call me an old hippie if you want, but the
sliding scale is one of my favorite things. An old
hippies like the sliding scale, sure, man, like everything from
I mean when I was a young, broke mid twenties
(18:14):
something and I wanted to go to a shrink, they
you know, I found a shrink at a sliding scale.
Like there are people out there to be like, you know, what,
what can you what can you pay? Right? And it
wasn't some government program, it was a private uh therapist.
And this is across the board. There are all sorts
of people who offer sliding scales, like you know, meals
(18:37):
of wheels. If you can pay a dollar, then that helps.
If you can't pay anything, we'll give it to you
if you can pay full price. I didn't see what
full price was for a meal on wheel. I saw
somewhere and this is a just a meals on wheels
um Like a volunteer who wrote something on Vox said
that they they are usually about two dollars and five cents.
(18:57):
That's full price, yeah, man, which is ridiculously low. Well yeah,
because I guess they're only paying for food costs. And
they're getting bulk you know, they're getting gallons of mayonnaise
at the warehouse. Yeah, you know, yeah, but you have
(19:18):
to order about ten overage for mayonnaise to to cover
shrinkage because everybody's always got their fingers in the man
is joke as they're walking in and out of the kitchen.
You know. That's what Pappy used to say, That's what
Mr Otis always said. He probably did so. Um, so
there is there is, there's money. There's financial contributions involved.
But for the most part um the being a part
(19:41):
of meals on Wheels as a recipient, it's based entirely
on need. And I think the first thing that they
look at is your medical need, right, yeah, so how
how able are you to get around your house? How
able are you? And this is a this is one
I hadn't thought of, But I'm like, Okay, well you
can get up and get around your house, you can
cook for yourself. Can you also go to the grocery store? Huge?
(20:02):
Huge one. So you may be physically able to, um,
hang out in your house and you know, maybe play canasta,
do whatever. But but getting to like, let's say you
lost your driver's license or you don't have a car
any longer, or or it's just getting to the grocery
store and shopping and then getting back is just way
too much. Um, you would probably qualify to be a
(20:26):
Meals on Wheels recipient, right yeah. I mean there's a
range of people like they also have uh like centers
where they feed a lot of people like in a
cafeteria setting, and they encourage you if you can get out,
you can still get your your really nutritious. Because I
don't think we've said that yet, but that goes without
saying these meals are specifically catered to the needs of
(20:48):
the elderly, right yeah. I think ever since nineteen two,
there was like an amendment maybe to the Older Americans
Act that said, maybe get those those um single cigarettes
out of that tray that you're bringing to the to
the older seniors. Let's actually make this like like a
nutritious meal. Yeah, so you can go to a place
(21:09):
and eat with a bunch of other people like you
and have a good conversation if you can get out
of the house. But the real focus in the core
of the program are those we call them shut ins
at our church. I don't know if that's a I
think homebound is what they normally call them. Yeah, I
think that's probably an antiquated Southern Baptist term, right, But
(21:30):
we would deliver meals to shut ins through our church.
It wasn't like Meals on Wheels. And there are plenty
of other programs that do this, but Meals on Wheels
is definitely the biggest and broad ut. Yeah, I get
the impression to that Meals on Wheels is in particularly
concerned by competition. No, I don't think they're like, okay,
as fine as long as everybody's getting their their meals. So, um,
let's say you you are you qualify medically as somebody
(21:54):
who is a Meals on Wheels recipient. Um, next they
would look at your finances, what can you for? What
can't afford? And they're not going to like go through
and dig dig through your check. They say, hey, give
me a wallet, right right, let me see what's in there. Yeah,
you go to grab it from and they just put
their palm on your forehead and hold you back right. No,
they're not gonna do anything like that. They're going to
(22:14):
just ask you like what can you afford or what
are you living on a month? How much extra income
maybe do you have. That's probably going to be the
extent of it. I get the impression that it's largely
an honor system kind of thing, right, and then if
you if if you're like I just can't afford it,
they'll say okay, great. Um. Depending on where you live,
you will either be put into the rotation or you'll
(22:37):
be putting sadly on a waiting list. And if you're
put on a waiting list, there's you. You might be
waiting a little while before they can include you. The
whole reason anybody would put you on a waiting list
is funding. And we'll talk about funding later on. Um,
let's stick to the good stuff right now. Yeah. So
the meals that you're getting are or they're delivering, can
(23:00):
be hot meals, they can be cold meals. They can
be frozen if that's what you want. If you don't
want to eat it, right then, uh, they can be
shelf stable or canned. Um. If you live way out
in the sticks, you can probably arrange to have like
a week's worth of meals delivered frozen. They really try
to work with you because they try to, I mean,
(23:22):
their goal is to say that there is no community
in the United States that we cannot serve right. Yeah,
I think if you like live out in remote Alaska,
they're they're gonna be like, can we just bring you
a week's worth of frozen meals? Can we just drop
an elk off on your front porch and a buck
knife and a buck knife that's right? And you'll say, yeah,
(23:44):
that'd be great. Well, the rural Alaskan, elderly Alaska would say, well,
I'll just put it with my other nineteen buck knives
and my other three elk and they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa,
you got that many elk We're gonna share it with
the rest of the community. And you'll say, uh, that's
wealth distribution New socialists. So here's one interesting stat though
(24:06):
that I saw that um less than five percent there's
an estimate, but less than five percent of eligible older
Americans receive meals, and that on average they received less
than three meals per week. Man, that is that is sad.
It is sad. And I don't know if that's is
that because they can't the program can't be robust enough.
I'm sure there's a million different factors involved, but I
(24:29):
would I would be very surprised that the leading factor
was not funding. Yeah, because there seems to very much
be a will. There seems to be a pretty great system,
decades old system in place the through communities throughout the
uh the country. Um, I would guess that it's just
having enough money to add another person to the list,
(24:51):
you know. Yeah, well that's a sad wait list, I
would guess. Also, volunteer volunteers are They're probably another fact
after as well. I was looking into volunteering. Actually after
doing this research, I was like, man, that's because not
only do I want to teach, Like having a kid
really can inspire you to be a better person because
(25:12):
you start to think, oh, well they're gonna be looking
to me and what I do. Uh. And it's great
to donate money to stuff, which is we're good about.
But volunteerism is a really big thing that I think
not enough people do and I certainly didn't do enough
of that. I'm going to try and teach is an
example going forward, Like man hours person hours is vital
(25:37):
to every program like this in the world. Yeah, Like
money is one thing, and funding is super important, but
it goes lockstep with people showing up and saying I
will help you do this. Yes, yes, that is what
Well put Chuck Well put man, because yes, donating money
is great. You could be like, wow, we've got ten
thousand meals, but they're all just sitting here rotting because
(25:59):
we don't have anybody to deliver all of them. It
is very important. Emily did it in high school. Actually,
oh yeah, I'm totally not surprised. Meals on wheels. Yeah
she did. She's a candy striper and died meals on
wheels and um, she said it was tough. You know,
sometimes this is the only human contact these people have
in a day. Uh, And she said it and she
(26:21):
really takes stuff on emotionally and it's hard for her.
And she said as an adult, she said, I don't
know if I would be able to do that, Like
I'm gonna try something else. But she said, all I
would think about is I need to help that one person.
I need to like try and help like move them
into a different house or and then the next person
(26:41):
and the next person exactly. But she said, it's it's
tough to Um, you know a lot of these are
very very sad cases. And if you have in your mind,
like you know, I just whistle zippity dude on bounce
around the neighborhoods and drop off meals and have a
quick chat. I mean it can be that, but it's
it takes an emotional toll. So like hats off to
(27:02):
people who are able to do this and put it
in the right place in their own emotional life, right, right. So,
so any anyone can be a Meals on Wheels volunteer, right,
no matter how emotionally invested you are in other humans.
And the reason why anybody can do this is because
Meals on Wheels. Well, we've we neglected to say there
(27:25):
is an organization called Meals on Wheels of America and
they are basically like the the lobbying central umbrella unit
of all the independent Meals on Wheels programs. There's like
five thousand of them around the country. Right, So they
do advocacy, they issue grants, they figure out best practices,
and one of the things they've said is like here
(27:46):
is what you as a volunteer should expect. Right, Yes,
you're going to be confronted by people you want to help,
but all you have to do is like all that's
expected of you, and you can you can get as
involved in invested as you want, but all that expected
of you, and it is enough to to bring a
meal to this person's house, say hey, how are you doing?
(28:09):
Good to see you. You're looking fine today, um, and
I'll see you tomorrow. You take care of yourself, see
you tomorrow. That that they've figured out that that is
enough to keep people from being completely disconnected from society.
And again, the food that you're bringing them is is
helping keep keep them alive. I read that something like
(28:29):
three thousand to five thousand seniors in America die of
malnutrition every year every year. This is not like a
nineteen seventeen statistics, this is this is this year. Um.
So the actually it was based on two thousand and
six data. I can't imagine it's gotten too terribly much better.
(28:50):
But the fact is that if you volunteer just doing
those those basic things, it's it's enough to have a
major impact in the life of somebody. Me. Do you
want to take another break? Yeah, let's all right. We're
gonna go deliver three meals and we'll be back right
after this. You know, I'm glad you said that before
(29:32):
break about this is like what all you have to
do because I didn't want to scare people off by
volunteering because of Emily's taking things on emotionally, Like, there
are people that are will do a great job going
out there checking in on people and can successfully do that.
(29:54):
Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, totally. And I'm sure
like and I'm sure Emily would would tell you that
there's probably probably recipients out there you're like, good lord,
that person is a jerk, or this person is sweeter
than that person, or this person is really easy to
talk to, Like I'm sure just the experience on both
sides is different for each interaction as well. For sure. Yeah,
(30:15):
I think that was that was worth saying. For sure,
there's that we should just say though when we were
talking about what you're expected to do, So there's basically
three things you are doing just by visiting. And they
said that they can, um, they can arrange your your
Meals on Wheels volunteer schedule. If you want to volunteer,
just go look up Meals on Wheels America and they
(30:35):
will connect you to whoever's got a program going in
your community. It's easy as pie. Um. They they will
whatever your schedule allows. That's great, they'll take it. That
would be fine for them if it's like, call me
if you need somebody to fill in, or I can
do this once a week, or I can do this
once a month, or I can do this five days
a week. Um. What they typically say is, you don't
(30:58):
have to um be independently wealthy, you don't have to
be unemployed. You you can do this on and typically
if you have an hour and a half for lunch break,
they they can put you on a meals on Wheels route. Yeah,
and they typically try to fit the meal deliveries into
that lunch break and it's a mid day delivery. But
if you're like, man, I can't get away from my job,
(31:20):
so sorry, I can't help you, They'll say, no, no,
no, no no, We'll find something for you to do after hours.
There are there are always plenty of things to do,
whether it's helping out in the warehouse or if you
want to volunteer in the kitchen. You can do stuff
like that too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially I would
guess if you have like food prep experience, like like
(31:40):
actual experience, they would probably say, yes, I'm sure there
is a need for that. Ye. So volunteering is very easy.
The program is really good. What you're doing again is
you're showing up with a good meal. U is usually
I saw somewhere. It's like a third of of UM
the daily calories of people who are receiving the meal UM.
(32:00):
And just that alone is worth bringing a meal for,
even if it's the biggest jerk in the world or
you're the biggest misanthrope in the world. Just giving them
this meal can do things like help them recover from
disease faster, illnesses or conditions faster, UM keep them mentally acute.
There's a lot of just benefits to having like nutrition
(32:22):
on a daily basis that you take for granted because
you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like
it's nothing. But imagine if you can't make it to
the story to get peanut butter or jelly, or your
handshake too bad to to spread the peanut butter the
jelly to to be able to have that meal. That
alone does it, right. But then the fact that they
added in these other two layers, that there's the UM,
(32:45):
like keeping social isolation at bay what they call UM
and meals on wheels, just a friendly visit where you're
to chatting saying Hi, how's the weather. You don't have
to be a particularly great conversationalist, but just saying to
say hi basically, and then you know, asking if they
need anything, looking around, making sure that they haven't fallen
(33:06):
is a big one. Like just just keeping tabs on
this person five days a week. Just having people who
are going to their house that it's going to cut
down in the amount of time between something happening to
them like a fall and somebody noticing that they they're
not answering their door any longer. Yeah, and that's not all.
I didn't realize this, but there are and because there
(33:28):
are more than five thousand UM Meals on Wheels programs
in the United States, it really varies per community as
to what it's like, but they all fall under that banner.
But in some programs you can get pet food delivered
for your cat UM. Sometimes they can offer home repair services.
Sometimes they can UM offer transportation services if you have
(33:51):
to go the doctor h if there's bad weather coming up,
you can get emergency meals UM. They're they're just all
sort of like hospital discharge pro rams UH to reduce
readmissions there. Sometimes they have gardens that they grow their own,
like the Meals on Wheels garden will grow vegetables, um right,
that they can. You know, it's like a farm to
(34:14):
table meal delivered to your own right exactly. You're like,
I've had better buck choy, but thank you. So it's
pretty cool, man. I mean it's hard to uh, there's
so many great organizations in the world that help people,
but Meals on Wheels is like they're really up there.
I agree wholeheartedly. So um there, if you talk to
(34:36):
anybody in Meals on Wheels or anybody that has anything
to do with aging, they will they will. You'll find
that they're like biting their nails and looking around nervously
while they're talking to you. And the reason why is
because remember the baby boom that happened after World War Two,
and then we did and they turned into hippies, and
then they turned into stockbrokers, and then they turned into
(34:59):
um kind of oren again hippies a little bit after
they made their millions. Well now they're just they're they're
they're the biggest population in the country and there um
aging and they're aging fairly fast. And we are not
set up at this moment to handle what's being called
the silver tsunami, this massive influx of aging people into
(35:23):
our economy, into our social structures, into UM needing social services,
needing healthcare were we might be set up for it, maybe,
but we're certainly not funding it correctly. And one of
the programs that is really poised to take a big
hit is Meals on Wheels. Yeah, so are we gonna
(35:45):
go with the funding talk here? I think so. Uh.
March of two thousand seventeen, there or a bunch of
big headlines made when UM the President's budget chief Mick
mulvaney said, you know, they released what's called their skinny budget,
which is basically where everybody can look and see in
(36:06):
a broad sense of what's being funded, what's being cut
as far as their budget goes. And Meals on Wheels
was was one of the things mentioned, and mcmulvaney said
that it's a program is one of many that is
just not showing any results. What was his quote, which
is I think they call that foot in mouth disease
(36:29):
because that was a really dumb thing to say, Well,
because yeah, what I want to know is what where
is he getting that? Like what does that mean? Because
there are there have been plenty of legit peer reviewed
studies that that show that meals on wheels is a
very effective program, right because like just almost immediately people
(36:53):
started like tweeting and reporting on studies that show that, um, yeah,
there's that actually really good results from meals on wheels
In addition to just keeping people alive, it's um it
actually is shown to like improve their lifespan, to improve
their nutritional health, to um reduce social isolation. And the
(37:20):
point of it. The biggest result too, is there's this
big push and there has been for a couple of
decades now to to get what are called low care
UM Medicaid recipients out of assisted living for a couple
of reasons. One their low care meaning they can care
for themselves. They just have been moved into a home
(37:40):
or whatever you want to call it. That's not a
nursing home yet. Assisted living is just basically like you're
you're at like a senior living facility, but it's not
necessarily you're not necessarily receiving nursing care. Right. UM, those
people who are low care UH senior citizens, they can
live on their own, and if they live on their own,
(38:03):
they cost a lot less to society. Then if they
were in these assistant care facilities. Now, if you're going
to encourage people to live independently, what's called aging in place,
which means you stay in your home as you age,
you they have to have a lifeline of connection to
the rest of society. And there's a number of different
(38:26):
programs that the Older Americans Act addresses this through, but
one of them is Meals on Wheels. So if you're
gonna have it one way, you've gotta have the other
thing too, is the point. Yeah, there's a few um
stats here. Here's one the average cost of a one
month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home delivered
meals five days a week for seven years uh. And
(38:51):
another one UH. Two thousand thirteen study from Brown University
said that in most states, increasing Meals on Wheels enrollment
would result in a net savings from decreased Medicaid costs
from nursing home care. And then they found just literally
as far as the health goes uh. They did through
the a ARP they did a study that said that
(39:13):
there were statistically significant differences and health benefits among the
three growth groups of people UM, people who got meal deliveries,
people who didn't and people who were on waiting list
was that the yep, exactly and basically the people who
had face to face visits, they had the highest gains.
(39:33):
So there is something to this. Another human being touching
you physically and handing you a meal. Uh and it's
touching you physically in an appropriate manner. Yeah. Uh So
I did some digging on this this funding because it's
really hard to to go through the web of numbers
(39:54):
on how what a budget cut means. Um So, what
this budget cut is proposed as right off the bat,
cutting three million dollars from the o A A where
the of the actual federal funding comes from, right, which
is a problem because they need an increase from what
(40:16):
I saw of twelve percent a year, not a decrease
of any kind. Yeah, we should point that out. This
is an organization that already was hurting, right and and
with the silver tsunami coming down the pike, if the
people who are going to continue to need the expanded
version of meals on wheels, you you need more funding
(40:37):
and apparently twelve percent increase of years what they're asking for. Right.
So remember earlier I said put a pin in those
three block grants the c d b G, s s
b G, and the c s b G. Uh, the
Trump budget completely eliminates all three of those, not just
the money, but like there are no more block grants,
(40:59):
those three gone, right, And there I have to say
there was some pretty poor reporting around that mc mulvaney
press conference because he was largely talking about cutting block grants,
which is three billion dollars from the federal government. He
he just decided to use meals on wheels as a
a poster child for the block grants that don't get
(41:21):
results because state, state, and local governments use block grants
to a kind of stuff, all sorts of different things.
One of the things that they customarily using force to
additionally fund local meals on wheels programs. Right, but that
was just the absolute worst program he could have picked,
because not only is it like no, it's as they
(41:42):
actually do bring meals to people and keep them alive.
That's the result, number one. But then the fact that
there's all these peer reviewed studies that show like, even
beyond that basis or that basic, that basic need that's
being met, it's better than that. That was just a
terrible one to pick on. And so trying to find
out the actual money is is really hard because the
(42:04):
way it's parched out, like you said, with these plot
grants going in all different directions. But they finally got
an estimate, they think from a senior Office of Management
and Budget official that it looks like it would be
about forty eight million dollars from that's forty five million
from the block grants and three million dollars from the
(42:24):
oh A A. It's about forty eight million bucks, is
their best guess of what meals on wheels would be
reduced annually when they needed more money to begin with,
and it's about a one point four billion dollar annual operations.
So you can say it's only a three percent cut
(42:44):
in federal funding or an overall funding, but a three
percent cut when people are on waiting list and they
needed three I mean, I'm not gonna say a three
percent increase. Probably needed more than that twelve a year. Oh,
they needed twelve a year and they're getting a three
percent shortfall cut right. Um. And again when you're talking
(43:05):
about like figuring out where to put your money, like
I've got another one for you ready for this? You
kind of touched on it. But that so the annual
meal cost according to Meals on Wheels America, the main
the main group that kind of oversees all the independent groups,
it's about sixty five dollars for the year. For the year. Okay,
(43:29):
The cost of one day in the hospital, according to
Mathematica Policy Research is no. I'm sorry that Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation is seventy for one day in the hospital. Right,
So the idea um that that this isn't cost effective
is is pretty wrong. And then the other aspect of it,
(43:49):
like the fact that this is that like being able
to stay in your home and age in your home
apparently extends lifespans quite dramatically. I saw one that said
that healthy, active, seventy eight year old person living independently
has a life expectancy of an additional fifteen or more years,
(44:10):
So ninety three. That's not bad, right, But that when
they enter a long term care facility that life expectancy
decreases automatically by fifty according to this one study. So
there's there's a really big um. There's good reason to
to let people stay in their homes or help them
stay in their homes. There's a couple of them. Uh,
(44:33):
if they want to of course, if they want to
go live somewhere because there's more um socializing or or
better food, or who knows, if you want to go
live in a a secure facility, I say, yes, do that.
I think there should be plenty of choice, plenty of
individual choice, depending on the circumstances and the needs and
the desires of the individual um for our aging population,
(44:57):
no matter whether they're baby boomers or generation ex eventually whoever.
I think, once you reach a certain point in your life,
you've contributed enough and you deserve to be taken care
of by the rest of us. Agreed. That's that's my
two cents. Yeah, man, do you got anything else? Uh No,
(45:19):
It's just so sad that as you age you should
be able to like have a dignified existence. Still, yeah,
you know, and not everyone has kids who make enough
money to take care of you or to put you
in the most expensive, really great quality nursing home. Um,
(45:40):
or you might just have terrible kids. That's a good point,
you know anyway. Yeah, that's all I have to say. So,
we we were told that meals on Wheels has like
this big um push going on right now, um, which
we were like, well, well, we'll release an episode about that.
And because it's good. So they have something called America.
(46:04):
Let's do lunch dot org. I think it's like a
volunteer campaign drive um, and you can also donate to
you can do both. You can do one, you can
do the other. Who knows, but do something? How about that? Yeah?
I mean just go to Meals on Wheels America on
the web or America let's do lunch dot org. For sure.
There you go and be human? Huh if you uh?
(46:29):
Oh wait, no, Chuck, we haven't gotten there yet. Since
I said be be human, it's time for listener mail.
You know what, let's skip listener mail this week, and
let's say use that extra ninety seconds to go to
your laptop and just do a little investigating on meals
on wheels. Okay, we'll wait, all right. If you want
(46:53):
to get in touch with this, especially, let us know
about a cool, interesting or crazy meals on we experience.
We would love that. You can tweet to us at
josh um Clark or s Y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
Chuck Bryant or slash stuff you should know. Oh yeah,
you can catch up with Chuck too on Twitter at
(47:14):
movie Crush. You can send us all an email to
Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant's just the two of us.
Today we had guest producer Tyler and here for a second.
He pressed your cord and left and it's just us.
(00:24):
It's cool. One of us needs to get our index
finger working so we can do that. Well. Remember we
used to say we were going to replace Jerry with
one of those dipping birds. Yeah, is that what they're called?
Dipping birds? Don't know, I just I just remember my
grandmother had one where the bird would dip its beak
in the water. All we have to do is arrange
(00:46):
it so we can press the space bar. Uh. Well,
we should be better than this, Chuck, because this is
a very nice, wonderful humane episode. Humane and human even
and human and it ties. Yeah, this is one of
our what we like to do, a little awareness shows
(01:06):
every now and then and meals on wheels, which, by
the way, for the past two days in my head,
I've been going meals on wheels. What is that? You remember?
It may have been a local thing when I was
a kid. That was a thing it was called World
of Wheels. It was like, I don't know if it
(01:26):
was a car show or like one of those monster
truck things, but it was. That's what they used to do,
is World of Wheels. I got you. That's funny you
say that, because I've had my own thing in my head.
There was a thrill Kill Cult song that was in
the movie Cool World called Sex on Wheels. So I've
been going meals on wheels, meals on whales, that's been
(01:52):
That's weird though, that we each have just kind of
had some weird loop in our heads. Maybe that helps
us research maybe and maybe meals on eels And we'll
get to the funding part of it at the end.
But maybe they would have better chances getting federal funding
if they had a cool theme song. Yeah, like by
the thrill Kill culture. That would surprise everybody, I think. So.
(02:15):
So we are talking meals on wheels today just just
to do our do diligence upfront. We just want to
tell everybody in case you don't know what that is,
but I'm sure most people do. Meals on wheels is
a meal delivery program here in the States and Canada, Australia.
I think it's all over the place where if you
(02:38):
are usually if you're a senior citizen, senior adult not
quite sure what they go by these days, and you
are homebound basically where you're able to care for yourself
in your home, but you're getting up there in years
and you haven't um gone into an assistant care facility,
but you're still you don't have a out of contact,
(03:00):
you might not have family around. What Meals on Wheels
does is they bring you a meal once a day,
five days a week. She'll lunch and uh say, hey,
how are you doing. Feeling good? Good? Okay, well we'll
see tomorrow. Enjoy your meal and um. Just that little
simple act of doing that, just apparently in research bears
(03:21):
this out completely changes the life and and extends the
life expectancy of people in that situation. Yeah, and it's
not just uh, I mean, we'll get to some of
the other things they do. But the main three pronged
reason for the home visit is the meal, like you said,
the visit, and then the final thing is the safety
check component, which is geez, uh, mr muldoon, you have
(03:45):
a wire hanging out of your wall. Uh, and it's sparking,
So let me see if I can get some help
with you, get some help for you on that, sir,
right exactly, that that could that could turn bad on
you exactly. So there's this there's this whole idea that
just by showing up at somebody's house with a meal, um,
you can you can just really vastly help improve their lives.
(04:09):
And when I think about like meals on wheels or
when I researched this stuff, it's like there's no like,
if you if you've lost faith in humanity, just look
into meals on wheels like it. It it cancels out
so much bad in the world, you know, and it
takes like this this population that here in the West,
Like it's very easy to become disconnected from your family
(04:33):
because you're you're offspring. Your kids as some people call them,
they grow up, they get their own jobs, they move
around where highly mobile culture Western civilization is um and
you can find yourself basically alone. Like if you're friends
with your neighbor and your neighbor dies or moves away,
you don't know the new younger neighbors, maybe they don't
(04:53):
care about you. Um, you can find yourself isolated and
being socially isolated is a huge problem. So the idea
that there's people out there who are strangers to you,
who will come to your house and bring you a
meal to make sure you're taken care of. That's there's
humanity right there. In a nutshell. Yeah, we had Um
she's moved away now, but are are older? Um and jeez,
(05:14):
I had no idea how old she was. She was
one of those ladies, Miss Jesse, our neighbor, who could
have been seventy or a hundred and six. I have
no idea. Is she the one with the goats? No? No, no,
we fed the goats again this morning. By the way,
Um No. Miss Jesse and Mr Otis lived next door.
Mr Otis had daily dialysis passed away um, which was
(05:37):
very sad because he was just great. Um. But Miss
Jesse was really nice. It took us a little while
to earn her trust. But um, she had her daughter Connie.
He would come by and get her what she needs
and bring your groceries. But we would always offer, you know,
we're going to store. Miss Jesse need anything, and she
would never take us up on it. But I think
just us talking to her on a daily basis because
(06:01):
she was one of these that would like you know,
she she would open the blinds every time she heard
a noise in the neighborhood. She was very on it,
which was great for when we went out town because
Miss Jesse was the best like watchdog you could asked for.
Did she give you a list of like teenagers that
she spotted while you were gone whenever you return home. No,
she just said that that ne'er do well, that guy
is up to no good. Anyway, She's a very sweet lady,
(06:24):
and I think eventually we earned her trust, and I
really got the sense that just us having a conversation
with her from for five minutes getting out of the
car meant a lot to her. Um, that's apparently what
the research shows that that kind of thing has a
pronounced impact on the life of somebody who has become
socially isolated. But she moved away. Yeah, she's like nuts
(06:47):
to those two. Yeah, someone bought her house. Uh, but
she's you know, she's doing great. The good end of
that story. She did not pass away. She moved away, right, gotcha?
So where did she move? Did she moved to an
assistant care facility? And she moved into an other house.
Does she moved in with her daughter. I think she
may have moved in with her daughter. But it was funny,
like she meant a lot to us, but it was
sort of like so long, suckers, we didn't get it.
(07:09):
Wasn't that like a cheerful goodbye. All of a sudden,
we're like you're moving. She's like, yep, sold my house
and she was out of there right, So shuts the
U haul gets in, flips you the bird on the way. Yeah.
So well then this one's for miss Jesse. Yeah there
you go. Um okay, so well, let's talk a little
bit of history. It's about meals on wheels because despite
(07:31):
how utterly human it is, um, it was started by robots.
It was robots who are trying to win us over
before they take over. Very strange, um the the it
hasn't been around for as long as you think, although
I think that it came about right around the time
when the need first arose because I was doing some
(07:54):
research and it seems like with industrialization and the rise
of like factory work, that is are a lot of
the the schism between our traditional society that was usually
a grarian based and this new modern society we live
in really began, and around that time is probably when
(08:14):
you would have started to have found some isolated seniors,
is like a growing population. Yeah, that makes sense because
I found it interesting that, uh, and we'll dig into
the history here, but I found it interesting that it
seemed to pop up within about a fifteen year period
in many countries around the world, and not because they
had heard of it. You know, It's not like they
(08:35):
read on the internet in nineteen fifty four that hey,
someone in England is doing this. So it I think
that has a lot of merit to it, that the
need was there kind of all at the same time,
yeah and all. Yeah, and it also kind of underscores
just how basically human and idea this is. You know, Alright,
so World War two raging England, being bombed, neighborhood and
(09:00):
regions being devastated. Uh, it became clear that people, you know,
like literally just their home or kitchen were destroyed, so
they couldn't do simple things like cook the meals they're
used to providing for their family. The Woman's Volunteer Service
for Civil Defense came around and they said, you know what,
we're gonna start delivering some some meals, some home cooked
(09:24):
meals to people that whose houses have been devastated, who
can't cook for themselves right now. They delivered them at
first in baby carriages, which is where the that's the wheels,
that's where it came from. Yeah, that that's what everybody
around town called it. Um. They called it meals on wheels,
pretty neat. It was just just the It was not
capitalized or anything like that. It was just kind of
(09:45):
like the the slang term what the cool kids called.
About ten years later or so in Philly, uh in Pennsylvania,
woman named Margaret Toy who became the first director of
Meals on Wheels in the United States, she organized something
called the Platter Angels and just by coincidence, there were
some British students in Philly doing some social work at
(10:08):
a community center where Mrs Toy volunteered, and they said, hey,
this is a lot like what we've got going on
in England with the Meals on wheels. Ditch that platter
angles angles angles there thinking of Joseph Angles. Ditch the
Platter Angels name and call it meals on wheels. And
I don't think they said ditch that name, but the
(10:28):
does would be some pushy exchange theory. Uh you know
those pushy British exchange students. They're the worst state. Surrounded
poor Mrs Toy and like poked her in the shoulder
and like blue cigarettes smoke in our face. Hey, platter
angel right out of her hand. So that's how it
(10:49):
became meals on Wheels in the United States. And then
over the next like twenty and thirty years in the
US they started popping up all over the place. They did.
And here's what you're kind of referring to earlier. So
that was that same year in September in Um, South Australia,
which is where Adelaide is. Shout out to Adelaide where
(11:11):
the summerton man is from, right, Um, a woman named
Doris Taylor came up with the same exact thing, and
from what I understand, called it meals on wheels as well.
Is that correct? Yeah? She was something else man Um.
She was disabled. The best I can discern is she
(11:31):
had a fall when she was seven which gave her
a limp, and then another fall when she was eleven
that paralyzed her from the waist down permanently. Like that
was it. That was it. She was wheelchair bound from
that point on. Yep, from that point on, and despite
the fact that as an eleven year old in a
wheelchair for life, she had a big heart and and
(11:54):
realized that there was a need to provide for people
in her community, just like was was going on in
American Britain, and said, hey, what about bringing a meal
to people? And then in September, like you said, meals
on wheels of South Australia, Uh, which I had to
look up on a map. I figured it was in
the South. Yeah, and in Australia it is. But it's
(12:15):
a big chunk um, a big chunk of land at least,
I don't know how populated it is. Well, if Adelaide's there,
it's great. Well, yeah, of course it is. But that
has grown. She actually lived long enough to see that
grow into a huge organization. And um, I don't know,
they have these all over the world and all over
(12:36):
the country here in America. But we just wanted to
shout her out specifically for you know, being disabled herself
and and going on to do like just this amazing thing.
It's it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, And and so you think, like, okay,
big deal, she's a wheelchair abound and she can she
can use her arms, she can juggle that kind of stuff. Nope,
she had rheumatoid arthritis, crippling rheumatoid arthritis on top of
(12:59):
all of the us and so she was just basically
she had no use of any of her limbs and
she still was out there raising like she had. She
used her mind too to get other people to get
off their duffs and help people less fortunate she was.
She was an amazing person. It's pretty great. Five thousand
(13:20):
clients in South Australia now ninety branches. Uh and this
is all because of Doris Taylor and then Chuck. So
speaking of South Australia, you were you were onto something
huge chunk land, not very populated. Adelaide is the capital
with just under one and a half million people, and
that's the population of South Australia as a whole. Well,
(13:42):
there you have it. There's a lot of unused land there.
Should we take a break? Oh sure, all right, let's
do it. Okay, So meals on wheels starts springing up
(14:13):
as like these community programs all over the world. Right,
just because there's a few spiritually aligned do gooders out
there who have this good idea, and it just spreads
and spreads and spreads. But the thing that they have
in common, aside from the basic we bring a meal
once a day to someone who can't get out of
their house, they also had in common that they were community,
(14:36):
grassroots organizations. That's how they that's how they operated, that's
how they were funded. That was it, and that was
the case until I believe nineteen with the Older Americans Act,
when the FEDS finally said, all right, okay, a good
idea is a good idea, we'll cough up some money
for your Meals on wheels programs. And it's been that
(14:57):
way ever since. Customarily, the Older Americans Act provides about
thirty percent of funding for the Meals on Wheels programs
in America, I should say, and then the rest. It's
like it's an early public part private partnership, where the
rest is meant to come from state and local governments,
private donations, foundations, grants, wherever they can get money from.
(15:21):
But the the the Meals on Wheels program is meant,
ever since nineteen sixty five in the US, to have
been able to rely on over a third of its
annual budget coming from the US government to provide that
foundation so they can get the rest. Yeah, so that,
like you said, is specifically because the O A A
and delivered through the Office of Health and Human Services
(15:44):
and got a shout out corporate donations because I feel
like they, you know, people like to bag on big corporations,
but um, part of their funding does come from corporations
chipping in. And then you talked about grants. There are
three specific uh block grant programs. Uh the Community Development
Block grant, the Social Services Block grant, and Community Services
(16:07):
Block Grant. And just put a pin in that because
that will come up again later. So um, again, the
most of the funding comes from things other than the
federal government, right, And and that there's another way that
these this program is funded and this is kind of
surprising to me, but it's from the people who are
(16:28):
the recipients of this aid as well. It is and
this is actually another Doris Taylor innovation, at least in Australia.
Before it was well you're this is charity, so here
just take this, she was like, yes, we're gonna incorporate volunteers,
and the volunteers don't need to be paid obviously, but
we still need to pay for the food. We still
(16:49):
need to pay workers to prepare the meals, and so
obviously some of that could be donated, but yeah, sure
not all of it. You just can't rely on that
always to be donated. You could kind of always rely
that there's gonna be somebody there who will fill in
for somebody who didn't show up that day in meal delivery, right,
or you can go do that yourself. But the more
(17:10):
skilled stuff, you need to be able to pay somebody
so that they will show up and do this stuff. Right.
So the idea of having the people who can afford
it pay for the meal, UM, that's that is kind
of innovative and it helps keep the program going. The
thing is is if you can't pay for the meal
you get that you get it for free. Well, and
(17:31):
then there's a that's a continuum. There's a sliding scale
between I can I can I can afford a little
bit for this meal, um, here's here's some and then
I think the people who are able to physically able to,
but are financially unable to afford a meal UM are
asked to volunteer to be a part of the Meals
(17:51):
on Wheels program. Themselves. Yeah, I'm a big You can
call me an old hippie if you want, but the
sliding scale is one of my favorite things. An old
hippies like the sliding scale, sure, man, like everything from
I mean when I was a young, broke mid twenties
(18:14):
something and I wanted to go to a shrink, they
you know, I found a shrink at a sliding scale.
Like there are people out there to be like, you know, what,
what can you what can you pay? Right? And it
wasn't some government program, it was a private uh therapist.
And this is across the board. There are all sorts
of people who offer sliding scales, like you know, meals
(18:37):
of wheels. If you can pay a dollar, then that helps.
If you can't pay anything, we'll give it to you
if you can pay full price. I didn't see what
full price was for a meal on wheel. I saw
somewhere and this is a just a meals on wheels
um Like a volunteer who wrote something on Vox said
that they they are usually about two dollars and five cents.
(18:57):
That's full price, yeah, man, which is ridiculously low. Well yeah,
because I guess they're only paying for food costs. And
they're getting bulk you know, they're getting gallons of mayonnaise
at the warehouse. Yeah, you know, yeah, but you have
(19:18):
to order about ten overage for mayonnaise to to cover
shrinkage because everybody's always got their fingers in the man
is joke as they're walking in and out of the kitchen.
You know. That's what Pappy used to say, That's what
Mr Otis always said. He probably did so. Um, so
there is there is, there's money. There's financial contributions involved.
But for the most part um the being a part
(19:41):
of meals on Wheels as a recipient, it's based entirely
on need. And I think the first thing that they
look at is your medical need, right, yeah, so how
how able are you to get around your house? How
able are you? And this is a this is one
I hadn't thought of, But I'm like, Okay, well you
can get up and get around your house, you can
cook for yourself. Can you also go to the grocery store? Huge?
(20:02):
Huge one. So you may be physically able to, um,
hang out in your house and you know, maybe play canasta,
do whatever. But but getting to like, let's say you
lost your driver's license or you don't have a car
any longer, or or it's just getting to the grocery
store and shopping and then getting back is just way
too much. Um, you would probably qualify to be a
(20:26):
Meals on Wheels recipient, right yeah. I mean there's a
range of people like they also have uh like centers
where they feed a lot of people like in a
cafeteria setting, and they encourage you if you can get out,
you can still get your your really nutritious. Because I
don't think we've said that yet, but that goes without
saying these meals are specifically catered to the needs of
(20:48):
the elderly, right yeah. I think ever since nineteen two,
there was like an amendment maybe to the Older Americans
Act that said, maybe get those those um single cigarettes
out of that tray that you're bringing to the to
the older seniors. Let's actually make this like like a
nutritious meal. Yeah, so you can go to a place
(21:09):
and eat with a bunch of other people like you
and have a good conversation if you can get out
of the house. But the real focus in the core
of the program are those we call them shut ins
at our church. I don't know if that's a I
think homebound is what they normally call them. Yeah, I
think that's probably an antiquated Southern Baptist term, right, But
(21:30):
we would deliver meals to shut ins through our church.
It wasn't like Meals on Wheels. And there are plenty
of other programs that do this, but Meals on Wheels
is definitely the biggest and broad ut. Yeah, I get
the impression to that Meals on Wheels is in particularly
concerned by competition. No, I don't think they're like, okay,
as fine as long as everybody's getting their their meals. So, um,
let's say you you are you qualify medically as somebody
(21:54):
who is a Meals on Wheels recipient. Um, next they
would look at your finances, what can you for? What
can't afford? And they're not going to like go through
and dig dig through your check. They say, hey, give
me a wallet, right right, let me see what's in there. Yeah,
you go to grab it from and they just put
their palm on your forehead and hold you back right. No,
they're not gonna do anything like that. They're going to
(22:14):
just ask you like what can you afford or what
are you living on a month? How much extra income
maybe do you have. That's probably going to be the
extent of it. I get the impression that it's largely
an honor system kind of thing, right, and then if
you if if you're like I just can't afford it,
they'll say okay, great. Um. Depending on where you live,
you will either be put into the rotation or you'll
(22:37):
be putting sadly on a waiting list. And if you're
put on a waiting list, there's you. You might be
waiting a little while before they can include you. The
whole reason anybody would put you on a waiting list
is funding. And we'll talk about funding later on. Um,
let's stick to the good stuff right now. Yeah. So
the meals that you're getting are or they're delivering, can
(23:00):
be hot meals, they can be cold meals. They can
be frozen if that's what you want. If you don't
want to eat it, right then, uh, they can be
shelf stable or canned. Um. If you live way out
in the sticks, you can probably arrange to have like
a week's worth of meals delivered frozen. They really try
to work with you because they try to, I mean,
(23:22):
their goal is to say that there is no community
in the United States that we cannot serve right. Yeah,
I think if you like live out in remote Alaska,
they're they're gonna be like, can we just bring you
a week's worth of frozen meals? Can we just drop
an elk off on your front porch and a buck
knife and a buck knife that's right? And you'll say, yeah,
(23:44):
that'd be great. Well, the rural Alaskan, elderly Alaska would say, well,
I'll just put it with my other nineteen buck knives
and my other three elk and they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa,
you got that many elk We're gonna share it with
the rest of the community. And you'll say, uh, that's
wealth distribution New socialists. So here's one interesting stat though
(24:06):
that I saw that um less than five percent there's
an estimate, but less than five percent of eligible older
Americans receive meals, and that on average they received less
than three meals per week. Man, that is that is sad.
It is sad. And I don't know if that's is
that because they can't the program can't be robust enough.
I'm sure there's a million different factors involved, but I
(24:29):
would I would be very surprised that the leading factor
was not funding. Yeah, because there seems to very much
be a will. There seems to be a pretty great system,
decades old system in place the through communities throughout the
uh the country. Um, I would guess that it's just
having enough money to add another person to the list,
(24:51):
you know. Yeah, well that's a sad wait list, I
would guess. Also, volunteer volunteers are They're probably another fact
after as well. I was looking into volunteering. Actually after
doing this research, I was like, man, that's because not
only do I want to teach, Like having a kid
really can inspire you to be a better person because
(25:12):
you start to think, oh, well they're gonna be looking
to me and what I do. Uh. And it's great
to donate money to stuff, which is we're good about.
But volunteerism is a really big thing that I think
not enough people do and I certainly didn't do enough
of that. I'm going to try and teach is an
example going forward, Like man hours person hours is vital
(25:37):
to every program like this in the world. Yeah, Like
money is one thing, and funding is super important, but
it goes lockstep with people showing up and saying I
will help you do this. Yes, yes, that is what
Well put Chuck Well put man, because yes, donating money
is great. You could be like, wow, we've got ten
thousand meals, but they're all just sitting here rotting because
(25:59):
we don't have anybody to deliver all of them. It
is very important. Emily did it in high school. Actually,
oh yeah, I'm totally not surprised. Meals on wheels. Yeah
she did. She's a candy striper and died meals on
wheels and um, she said it was tough. You know,
sometimes this is the only human contact these people have
in a day. Uh, And she said it and she
(26:21):
really takes stuff on emotionally and it's hard for her.
And she said as an adult, she said, I don't
know if I would be able to do that, Like
I'm gonna try something else. But she said, all I
would think about is I need to help that one person.
I need to like try and help like move them
into a different house or and then the next person
(26:41):
and the next person exactly. But she said, it's it's
tough to Um, you know a lot of these are
very very sad cases. And if you have in your mind,
like you know, I just whistle zippity dude on bounce
around the neighborhoods and drop off meals and have a
quick chat. I mean it can be that, but it's
it takes an emotional toll. So like hats off to
(27:02):
people who are able to do this and put it
in the right place in their own emotional life, right, right. So,
so any anyone can be a Meals on Wheels volunteer, right,
no matter how emotionally invested you are in other humans.
And the reason why anybody can do this is because
Meals on Wheels. Well, we've we neglected to say there
(27:25):
is an organization called Meals on Wheels of America and
they are basically like the the lobbying central umbrella unit
of all the independent Meals on Wheels programs. There's like
five thousand of them around the country. Right, So they
do advocacy, they issue grants, they figure out best practices,
and one of the things they've said is like here
(27:46):
is what you as a volunteer should expect. Right, Yes,
you're going to be confronted by people you want to help,
but all you have to do is like all that's
expected of you, and you can you can get as
involved in invested as you want, but all that expected
of you, and it is enough to to bring a
meal to this person's house, say hey, how are you doing?
(28:09):
Good to see you. You're looking fine today, um, and
I'll see you tomorrow. You take care of yourself, see
you tomorrow. That that they've figured out that that is
enough to keep people from being completely disconnected from society.
And again, the food that you're bringing them is is
helping keep keep them alive. I read that something like
(28:29):
three thousand to five thousand seniors in America die of
malnutrition every year every year. This is not like a
nineteen seventeen statistics, this is this is this year. Um.
So the actually it was based on two thousand and
six data. I can't imagine it's gotten too terribly much better.
(28:50):
But the fact is that if you volunteer just doing
those those basic things, it's it's enough to have a
major impact in the life of somebody. Me. Do you
want to take another break? Yeah, let's all right. We're
gonna go deliver three meals and we'll be back right
after this. You know, I'm glad you said that before
(29:32):
break about this is like what all you have to
do because I didn't want to scare people off by
volunteering because of Emily's taking things on emotionally, Like, there
are people that are will do a great job going
out there checking in on people and can successfully do that.
(29:54):
Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, totally. And I'm sure
like and I'm sure Emily would would tell you that
there's probably probably recipients out there you're like, good lord,
that person is a jerk, or this person is sweeter
than that person, or this person is really easy to
talk to, Like I'm sure just the experience on both
sides is different for each interaction as well. For sure. Yeah,
(30:15):
I think that was that was worth saying. For sure,
there's that we should just say though when we were
talking about what you're expected to do, So there's basically
three things you are doing just by visiting. And they
said that they can, um, they can arrange your your
Meals on Wheels volunteer schedule. If you want to volunteer,
just go look up Meals on Wheels America and they
(30:35):
will connect you to whoever's got a program going in
your community. It's easy as pie. Um. They they will
whatever your schedule allows. That's great, they'll take it. That
would be fine for them if it's like, call me
if you need somebody to fill in, or I can
do this once a week, or I can do this
once a month, or I can do this five days
a week. Um. What they typically say is, you don't
(30:58):
have to um be independently wealthy, you don't have to
be unemployed. You you can do this on and typically
if you have an hour and a half for lunch break,
they they can put you on a meals on Wheels route. Yeah,
and they typically try to fit the meal deliveries into
that lunch break and it's a mid day delivery. But
if you're like, man, I can't get away from my job,
(31:20):
so sorry, I can't help you, They'll say, no, no,
no, no no, We'll find something for you to do after hours.
There are there are always plenty of things to do,
whether it's helping out in the warehouse or if you
want to volunteer in the kitchen. You can do stuff
like that too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially I would
guess if you have like food prep experience, like like
(31:40):
actual experience, they would probably say, yes, I'm sure there
is a need for that. Ye. So volunteering is very easy.
The program is really good. What you're doing again is
you're showing up with a good meal. U is usually
I saw somewhere. It's like a third of of UM
the daily calories of people who are receiving the meal UM.
(32:00):
And just that alone is worth bringing a meal for,
even if it's the biggest jerk in the world or
you're the biggest misanthrope in the world. Just giving them
this meal can do things like help them recover from
disease faster, illnesses or conditions faster, UM keep them mentally acute.
There's a lot of just benefits to having like nutrition
(32:22):
on a daily basis that you take for granted because
you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like
it's nothing. But imagine if you can't make it to
the story to get peanut butter or jelly, or your
handshake too bad to to spread the peanut butter the
jelly to to be able to have that meal. That
alone does it, right. But then the fact that they
added in these other two layers, that there's the UM,
(32:45):
like keeping social isolation at bay what they call UM
and meals on wheels, just a friendly visit where you're
to chatting saying Hi, how's the weather. You don't have
to be a particularly great conversationalist, but just saying to
say hi basically, and then you know, asking if they
need anything, looking around, making sure that they haven't fallen
(33:06):
is a big one. Like just just keeping tabs on
this person five days a week. Just having people who
are going to their house that it's going to cut
down in the amount of time between something happening to
them like a fall and somebody noticing that they they're
not answering their door any longer. Yeah, and that's not all.
I didn't realize this, but there are and because there
(33:28):
are more than five thousand UM Meals on Wheels programs
in the United States, it really varies per community as
to what it's like, but they all fall under that banner.
But in some programs you can get pet food delivered
for your cat UM. Sometimes they can offer home repair services.
Sometimes they can UM offer transportation services if you have
(33:51):
to go the doctor h if there's bad weather coming up,
you can get emergency meals UM. They're they're just all
sort of like hospital discharge pro rams UH to reduce
readmissions there. Sometimes they have gardens that they grow their own,
like the Meals on Wheels garden will grow vegetables, um right,
that they can. You know, it's like a farm to
(34:14):
table meal delivered to your own right exactly. You're like,
I've had better buck choy, but thank you. So it's
pretty cool, man. I mean it's hard to uh, there's
so many great organizations in the world that help people,
but Meals on Wheels is like they're really up there.
I agree wholeheartedly. So um there, if you talk to
(34:36):
anybody in Meals on Wheels or anybody that has anything
to do with aging, they will they will. You'll find
that they're like biting their nails and looking around nervously
while they're talking to you. And the reason why is
because remember the baby boom that happened after World War Two,
and then we did and they turned into hippies, and
then they turned into stockbrokers, and then they turned into
(34:59):
um kind of oren again hippies a little bit after
they made their millions. Well now they're just they're they're
they're the biggest population in the country and there um
aging and they're aging fairly fast. And we are not
set up at this moment to handle what's being called
the silver tsunami, this massive influx of aging people into
(35:23):
our economy, into our social structures, into UM needing social services,
needing healthcare were we might be set up for it, maybe,
but we're certainly not funding it correctly. And one of
the programs that is really poised to take a big
hit is Meals on Wheels. Yeah, so are we gonna
(35:45):
go with the funding talk here? I think so. Uh.
March of two thousand seventeen, there or a bunch of
big headlines made when UM the President's budget chief Mick
mulvaney said, you know, they released what's called their skinny budget,
which is basically where everybody can look and see in
(36:06):
a broad sense of what's being funded, what's being cut
as far as their budget goes. And Meals on Wheels
was was one of the things mentioned, and mcmulvaney said
that it's a program is one of many that is
just not showing any results. What was his quote, which
is I think they call that foot in mouth disease
(36:29):
because that was a really dumb thing to say, Well,
because yeah, what I want to know is what where
is he getting that? Like what does that mean? Because
there are there have been plenty of legit peer reviewed
studies that that show that meals on wheels is a
very effective program, right because like just almost immediately people
(36:53):
started like tweeting and reporting on studies that show that, um, yeah,
there's that actually really good results from meals on wheels
In addition to just keeping people alive, it's um it
actually is shown to like improve their lifespan, to improve
their nutritional health, to um reduce social isolation. And the
(37:20):
point of it. The biggest result too, is there's this
big push and there has been for a couple of
decades now to to get what are called low care
UM Medicaid recipients out of assisted living for a couple
of reasons. One their low care meaning they can care
for themselves. They just have been moved into a home
(37:40):
or whatever you want to call it. That's not a
nursing home yet. Assisted living is just basically like you're
you're at like a senior living facility, but it's not
necessarily you're not necessarily receiving nursing care. Right. UM, those
people who are low care UH senior citizens, they can
live on their own, and if they live on their own,
(38:03):
they cost a lot less to society. Then if they
were in these assistant care facilities. Now, if you're going
to encourage people to live independently, what's called aging in place,
which means you stay in your home as you age,
you they have to have a lifeline of connection to
the rest of society. And there's a number of different
(38:26):
programs that the Older Americans Act addresses this through, but
one of them is Meals on Wheels. So if you're
gonna have it one way, you've gotta have the other
thing too, is the point. Yeah, there's a few um
stats here. Here's one the average cost of a one
month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home delivered
meals five days a week for seven years uh. And
(38:51):
another one UH. Two thousand thirteen study from Brown University
said that in most states, increasing Meals on Wheels enrollment
would result in a net savings from decreased Medicaid costs
from nursing home care. And then they found just literally
as far as the health goes uh. They did through
the a ARP they did a study that said that
(39:13):
there were statistically significant differences and health benefits among the
three growth groups of people UM, people who got meal deliveries,
people who didn't and people who were on waiting list
was that the yep, exactly and basically the people who
had face to face visits, they had the highest gains.
(39:33):
So there is something to this. Another human being touching
you physically and handing you a meal. Uh and it's
touching you physically in an appropriate manner. Yeah. Uh So
I did some digging on this this funding because it's
really hard to to go through the web of numbers
(39:54):
on how what a budget cut means. Um So, what
this budget cut is proposed as right off the bat,
cutting three million dollars from the o A A where
the of the actual federal funding comes from, right, which
is a problem because they need an increase from what
(40:16):
I saw of twelve percent a year, not a decrease
of any kind. Yeah, we should point that out. This
is an organization that already was hurting, right and and
with the silver tsunami coming down the pike, if the
people who are going to continue to need the expanded
version of meals on wheels, you you need more funding
(40:37):
and apparently twelve percent increase of years what they're asking for. Right.
So remember earlier I said put a pin in those
three block grants the c d b G, s s
b G, and the c s b G. Uh, the
Trump budget completely eliminates all three of those, not just
the money, but like there are no more block grants,
(40:59):
those three gone, right, And there I have to say
there was some pretty poor reporting around that mc mulvaney
press conference because he was largely talking about cutting block grants,
which is three billion dollars from the federal government. He
he just decided to use meals on wheels as a
a poster child for the block grants that don't get
(41:21):
results because state, state, and local governments use block grants
to a kind of stuff, all sorts of different things.
One of the things that they customarily using force to
additionally fund local meals on wheels programs. Right, but that
was just the absolute worst program he could have picked,
because not only is it like no, it's as they
(41:42):
actually do bring meals to people and keep them alive.
That's the result, number one. But then the fact that
there's all these peer reviewed studies that show like, even
beyond that basis or that basic, that basic need that's
being met, it's better than that. That was just a
terrible one to pick on. And so trying to find
out the actual money is is really hard because the
(42:04):
way it's parched out, like you said, with these plot
grants going in all different directions. But they finally got
an estimate, they think from a senior Office of Management
and Budget official that it looks like it would be
about forty eight million dollars from that's forty five million
from the block grants and three million dollars from the
(42:24):
oh A A. It's about forty eight million bucks, is
their best guess of what meals on wheels would be
reduced annually when they needed more money to begin with,
and it's about a one point four billion dollar annual operations.
So you can say it's only a three percent cut
(42:44):
in federal funding or an overall funding, but a three
percent cut when people are on waiting list and they
needed three I mean, I'm not gonna say a three
percent increase. Probably needed more than that twelve a year. Oh,
they needed twelve a year and they're getting a three
percent shortfall cut right. Um. And again when you're talking
(43:05):
about like figuring out where to put your money, like
I've got another one for you ready for this? You
kind of touched on it. But that so the annual
meal cost according to Meals on Wheels America, the main
the main group that kind of oversees all the independent groups,
it's about sixty five dollars for the year. For the year. Okay,
(43:29):
The cost of one day in the hospital, according to
Mathematica Policy Research is no. I'm sorry that Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation is seventy for one day in the hospital. Right,
So the idea um that that this isn't cost effective
is is pretty wrong. And then the other aspect of it,
(43:49):
like the fact that this is that like being able
to stay in your home and age in your home
apparently extends lifespans quite dramatically. I saw one that said
that healthy, active, seventy eight year old person living independently
has a life expectancy of an additional fifteen or more years,
(44:10):
So ninety three. That's not bad, right, But that when
they enter a long term care facility that life expectancy
decreases automatically by fifty according to this one study. So
there's there's a really big um. There's good reason to
to let people stay in their homes or help them
stay in their homes. There's a couple of them. Uh,
(44:33):
if they want to of course, if they want to
go live somewhere because there's more um socializing or or
better food, or who knows, if you want to go
live in a a secure facility, I say, yes, do that.
I think there should be plenty of choice, plenty of
individual choice, depending on the circumstances and the needs and
the desires of the individual um for our aging population,
(44:57):
no matter whether they're baby boomers or generation ex eventually whoever.
I think, once you reach a certain point in your life,
you've contributed enough and you deserve to be taken care
of by the rest of us. Agreed. That's that's my
two cents. Yeah, man, do you got anything else? Uh No,
(45:19):
It's just so sad that as you age you should
be able to like have a dignified existence. Still, yeah,
you know, and not everyone has kids who make enough
money to take care of you or to put you
in the most expensive, really great quality nursing home. Um,
(45:40):
or you might just have terrible kids. That's a good point,
you know anyway. Yeah, that's all I have to say. So,
we we were told that meals on Wheels has like
this big um push going on right now, um, which
we were like, well, well, we'll release an episode about that.
And because it's good. So they have something called America.
(46:04):
Let's do lunch dot org. I think it's like a
volunteer campaign drive um, and you can also donate to
you can do both. You can do one, you can
do the other. Who knows, but do something? How about that? Yeah?
I mean just go to Meals on Wheels America on
the web or America let's do lunch dot org. For sure.
There you go and be human? Huh if you uh?
(46:29):
Oh wait, no, Chuck, we haven't gotten there yet. Since
I said be be human, it's time for listener mail.
You know what, let's skip listener mail this week, and
let's say use that extra ninety seconds to go to
your laptop and just do a little investigating on meals
on wheels. Okay, we'll wait, all right. If you want
(46:53):
to get in touch with this, especially, let us know
about a cool, interesting or crazy meals on we experience.
We would love that. You can tweet to us at
josh um Clark or s Y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
Chuck Bryant or slash stuff you should know. Oh yeah,
you can catch up with Chuck too on Twitter at
(47:14):
movie Crush. You can send us all an email to
Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot
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