This magazine is called Suburban Living. Most of us reading it are, in fact, suburbanites, and are fortunate enough not to have to worry about how to put food in our stomachs. I say most.
There are many in our community who find it hard or impossible to leave the house and purchase food for themselves. That’s where Meals on Wheels comes in. Everyone has heard of the organization, but what do you really know about the people it serves?
John and Ella Royall of Sunset Ridge have been delivering meals through Meals on Wheels for four years. They were gracious enough to let me tag along with them one Thursday morning to see what the organization is all about. First, we drove to the pickup center, Pine Acres Community Center, in Fuquay. There we met Maggie, who helped us pack up the meals, which she was keeping warm in the center’s commercial oven. “Everybody packs it differently,” Ella says. After four years, she has a system. The first three meals go in the front seat, ready to hand out, and the others go in an insulated bag in the backseat so they stay hot. The bread, fruit, and drinks go in a tied plastic bag. That way you can load several on each arm. What’s on the menu today? Lemon pepper chicken, broccoli, squash casserole, bread, a banana, apple juice, and milk. Clients get paper menus on the first of every month, and the meal plans are also available online, if like me, you’re curious. Meals on Wheels offers a variety of hearty but healthy staples, dishes like Brunswick stew, meatloaf, and chicken parm. One of the folks on their route tells me that when she cooks for herself, it’s usually something like a cup of ramen noodles, so the meals are very much appreciated.
There are typically 13-15 homes on each route. For one stop on this particular morning, Ella called ahead to give a wheelchair-bound gentleman a chance to get to the door so he wouldn’t have to feel rushed. Then there’s another woman who has trouble opening her cartons of milk and juice, so Ella will do it for her. Ella has learned everyone’s preferences. It’s small courtesies such as these that indicate the attention to detail the Royalls pay to their volunteering assignment. And so when they’re handed their route for the day only to discover that someone is no longer on the list, they wonder. “Sometimes people are taken off and they don’t tell us why,” Ella says. It may be because the person is in the hospital, or it may be that they’ve passed away. She pointed out a couple of different places during our time together where they had once served people who had later died. And when something is awry, like the time she spotted bruises on one woman’s face, she reports it. On this day she observes that one of the clients is wearing an arm bandage and asks what happened. There’s a certain obligation she feels, it seems to me, to notice people. To ask how they’re doing, to place their meal where they would like it, to make sure they’re OK, and then to keep it moving. Because there are others.
Ella says she’s really gotten to know our town since she’s started volunteering with Meals on Wheels. We’re all used to our particular routes, whether it’s to and from work, school, daycare, church, or our favorite shopping and dining spots. Our town is big, however. Well, it’s big but it’s small. “We’re gonna take you to a part of Holly Springs I guarantee you you’ve never seen,” Ella says at one point. And she’s right. We turn onto a street off of Holly Springs Road that I’ve passed probably a hundred times on my way to and from church. Sixty seconds later, we’re in a very different area. Ella explains, “Here, it’s not black and it’s not white, it’s poor.” And it’s true—I see a mix of everything, not only racially speaking but trailer homes, small, single-family houses, even outhouses. And yet a quick right turn and then a left turn, John says, and you’re in Cary. But in this little pocket of Holly Springs, we’re going to a home where the Royalls drop two meals off: one for the husband and one for the wife. John and Ella speculate whether both of them will be up and outside on this unseasonably warm March morning. As we pull up, John says, “There’s my man,” and starts waving to an elderly African American gentleman sitting on his side porch. We get out and she introduces me, writer at “Suburban Living Magazine.” And I become a little self-conscious. After all, it’s not exactly “suburban living” here. But the gentleman is friendly and explains that his wife is at the store. Ella later tells me she knows the wife can’t drive so she must’ve arranged a ride. We talk for a minute or so and then part ways, the man smiling and waving goodbye as we back out of his gravel driveway. “I love my hot meals on wheels!” he had said, which had made us both laugh.
“You do develop some sort of relationship with them,” Ella says as we drive back after having made our last delivery. “Some of the people want to have conversations, they’ll tell you about their surgeries, their children, how they’re doing.” One of the women on their route was diagnosed with breast cancer less than a year ago. Another, Miss Ethel, tragically lost her nephew less than a week ago, and she opened up about how hard it was for her not to be physically able to go to the funeral. Still, others will barely say two words to you, Ella tells me. Then there’s the woman who just about complains when Ella knocks on her door, saying, “Is it eleven o’clock already?” But when I ask John and Ella if they ever take it personally, they both laugh. “Hey, I’m not the one cooking the meals!” Ella says.
Volunteers like Ella and John, they don’t do it for the accolades, for the recognition, for anything except to give back. In fact, when I try to get them to expound on why they serve so faithfully, they keep it matter-of-fact. Because it’s a lot of driving and a lot of in-and-out of the car, I ask, “How do you handle bad weather? What do you do when it’s really hot, or really cold, or what about when it rains?” Ella’s response? “I wear a hoodie.”
John tells me that he’ll be 76 years old next month, which legitimately surprises me. “I’m just trying to keep up with her,” he says, gesturing to his wife in the passenger seat, and they both chuckle. But John explains that his grandparents, who raised him, showed him what it meant to give back. “My grandfather and my grandmother, they were always doing stuff for people,” he says. His grandmother would organize things for poorer kids at his elementary school. “I always saw that,” he says, almost like he’s still, to this day, in awe. It’s clear that their example made an impact on him. John and Ella both have a rich history of volunteering with various organizations, including not only Meals on Wheels, but also the Literary Council of Wake County and the Raleigh chapter of Optimist International. Later that very afternoon, John tells me he’s going to be reading essays for a kids essay contest.
Since 1974, Meals on Wheels of Wake County has provided 1,300 meals per day. That’s a grand total of over 8,000,000 meals to hungry people in our area. Meals on Wheels’ mission is to end senior hunger, improve nutrition, and reduce isolation. Some of the people Ella and John serve barely open their doors to receive the food. Others invite them in. What I take away from the experience is how simple and no-frills it is. This is about putting food in stomachs. It’s easy to live your life in Holly Springs completely unaware of a whole segment of people who find it difficult or impossible to leave their house, elderly folks and those with disabilities who lean on volunteers like Ella and John. But if you’ve read this far, you now know.
Miss Ethel, 87, says that to this day, she still doesn’t know who “turned [her] name in.” In other words, how she actually came to start receiving meals from the program years ago. Ella suggests that perhaps it was her daughter. But Miss Ethel says she asked her daughter, and her daughter said it wasn’t her. It shall remain a mystery. But what will not remain a mystery is who is on the receiving end of these meals. The who, the what, and most importantly, the why.
If you’d like to learn more about Meals on Wheels, visit
www.wakemow.org
