Meals on Wheels is turning to the public for help offering its elderly and isolated clients an added pick-me-up with their meals.
The mobile food delivery service has launched a letter-writing campaign, asking Londoners to email them uplifting and kind words that can be printed and attached to each of its food deliveries.
"A lot of our clients really look forward to the conservation with our drivers when they are coming by to drop-off the meals. Now that we are doing a contactless delivery that isn't an option for them, which makes something like this letter campaign even more important," said Chad Callander, executive director of Meals on Wheels London. "People need to keep in mind, whether COVID is happening or not, our clients are socially isolated all the time. So this gives them an extra boost."
The idea to launch the letter-writing campaign came from a similar initiative Callander saw on the news where children were sending notes to seniors in long-term care homes.
Since issuing the call for thoughtful notes through social media earlier this week, Meals on Wheels has received 100 letters it can add to each delivery.
"We're asking people to keep it positive - happy messages, funny stories, good quotes. Kids can do drawings that can be scanned and sent to us. It is something simple to brighten somebody's day," said Callander. "If people want to send one, five or ten letters, too many is not a problem. Even after this crisis is over, we will continue to deliver every single letter that we get until we run out."
Meals on Wheels provides frozen and hot meals to people over the age of 55 or to adults with disabilities. In a typical month, volunteers with the group deliver to roughly 1,000 clients across the city. However, since the outbreak of COVID-19 began, forcing more people to stay home, Meals on Wheels has seen a 20 per cent increase in demand for its services.
"We are managing the rise in demand, but we are encouraging anyone who can to go online and make a donation," added Callander.
Both Youth Opportunities Unlimited, which supplies the hot meals, and Apetito Canada, which crafts the frozen meals, have been able to increase their production to meet the growing demand from Meals on Wheels.
Letters for the 'send a letter to a senior' campaign can be emailed to letters@MOWL.ca.
In this difficult time connection is more important than ever before. We are working to combat the feelings of social-isolation experienced by seniors during this crisis.
We have started a campaign asking the community to reach out and offer kind words of support those we serve! pic.twitter.com/EPjhq1zL1K
— Meals on Wheels (@MOWLondon) April 21, 2020
