City Gives Meals on Wheels a Boost

By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer

April 20 -- Like the many residents it serves, Meals on Wheels needed a helping hand, and last week the City came through with a $24,807 grant to keep the service agency rolling.

After months spent searching for an affordable home, Meals on Wheels West (MOWW) made a deal to lease new offices at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church on Michigan Avenue just before the agency had to move last November.

But rehabbing the old pastor’s house -- which included replacing the floor, retarring the roof, sheet metal work and electrical repairs -- put the agency deep in the financial hole.

Meals on Wheels work station before and after	(photos courtesy of Meals on Wheels)

Despite in-kind and cash donations from the Rotary Club valued at $25,785 and a crew of volunteers working seven days a week, the agency, which kept delivering daily hot meals to hundreds of local shut-ins during the move, still owed nearly $25,000 for the demolition and rehabilitation work.

“Thank god for those donors,” said Executive Director RoseMary Regalbuto, referring to the many who contributed. “It just turned out so very well,” she said as she showed off the newly painted pale green and white offices, new carpeting, new ceiling and spotless new office furniture.

MOWW took it on itself as “an act of good faith” to paint and repair the exterior of the building annexed to the historic Pico Neighborhood church, added staff member Kevin McNulty.

The staff and volunteers like the “comfortable, homey” offices in the “quiet, lovely” residential area, Regalbuto said.

City figures show MOWW served 272 Santa Monica residents last year, just a part of the total the agency visits on the Westside.

Clients have been as young as 18 and as old as 102, Regalbuto said. While many are elderly, some are victims of accidents or illness. If a neighbor has just gotten home from the hospital and needs nourishing, regular meals, MOWW would like to help.

It’s not always obvious when someone in an upscale community like Santa Monica needs help, McNulty pointed out. Friends and neighbors need to be alert.

“Neighbors might be house rich but they may be cash poor and family poor,” McNulty said.

Some, particularly the generation that grew up in the 1930s and 40s, may avoid asking for help, feeling asking for charity is beneath their dignity.

MOWW is not a charity, Regalbuto emphasized. Clients may pay $6 for two meals daily, if their budget can handle it, but no one is turned away because they can’t pay.

And MOWW offers more than meals. “Daily social contact is even more important,” Regalbuto said, adding that her organization provides a vital connection to the outside world for the housebound.

Volunteers bring newspapers, share the holidays with their clients and keep an eye out for problems, such as using the stove for heating the house, keeping spoiled food in the refrigerator and broken glass on the floor -- all warning signs of increasing dementia.

MOWW volunteers have even identified and reported elder abuse, Regalbuto said.

When asked about the clients MOWW now serves, Regalbuto pointed out “the demographic is changing.”

“We’ll have to change a little for the baby boomers,” she said. “We’re going to have to do something a little bit different, a little more upscale.”

While a balanced diet has been a cornerstone of MOW since its conception in 1940’s wartime Britain, Regalbuto expects the meals of the future to include more fresh fruit and become less “institutional.”

Recently, MOWW took a step in that direction by handing out $5 farmers’ market coupons to its clients.

For now, Regalbuto and her staff want to work with local churches and temples to spread the word of its services.

MOWW can be reached at (310) 394-5133 or on the Meals On Wheels West website. http://www.mealsonwheelswest.org/aboutus.html