Meals on Wheels
Meals on Wheels Mesa County was established 54 years ago with a mission to provide sustenance and nutrition to the elderly community, and they currently serve more than 1,400 on the Western Slope. Volunteers for the program deliver one lunchtime meal per day, Monday through Friday, and clients who need food assistance for the weekends can request a bi-weekly delivery of five frozen meals intended to last two weekends. A registered dietitian designs all meals to ensure they contain at least one-third of a person’s daily nutritional needs, such as more than 30 mg of vitamin C and more than 9.5 mg of fiber. The program offers new meals daily, ranging from turkey tetrazzini to clam chowder to chili stuffed potatoes. The meals always feature a high-calorie count, a protein-based entree, vegetables and fruit. Their monthly menu can be found on the Meals on Wheels Mesa County website.
As Meals on Wheels Mesa County worked to mitigate its loss of nearly $200,000 in government funding from the last fiscal year, the new fiscal year began in July — with further budget cuts.
Between 2019 and 2022, the local Meals on Wheels saw a jump in need by nearly 120,000 additional meals per year, reflected in its expenses rising from $700,000 a year to $1.2 million. Conversely, government funding for Meals on Wheels decreased by around $200,000 between its previous two fiscal years.
As a result, the program was financially restricted from accepting additional clientele and created a waitlist for new applicants. Between the waitlist’s implementation in July 2023 and October, not one person moved up; at its peak, it contained 146 people.
According to Meals on Wheels Mesa County Director Amanda de Bock, an outpouring of community support and grant funding has enabled the program to whittle away at that list, moving more than 300 applicants off the waitlist and bringing the queue down to about 44 people.
In fact, de Bock said they supplemented at least 60% of last year’s lost government funding through individual donations, grant funding and foundation support. However, that generosity isn’t a guarantee, despite its increasing importance in supplementing the repeated budget cuts.
“We were really grateful to get the support of the community that we needed and hope that it continues for this year,” de Bock said. “Our goal for the year is to stay steady. We don’t want to go down, we want to stay where we’re at.”
According to Heather Jones, the Northwest Colorado Area Agency on Aging Director, the need for alternate revenue streams can be seen across all the state’s senior services. The AAA distributes government funding to regional senior services, with the Northwest AAA including Mesa, Moffat, Garfield and Rio Blanco counties.
Mesa County’s Meals on Wheels is just one of the many resources for older adults affected, as all government funding is distributed through the Northwest Colorado Area Agency on Aging, which Jones said has $256,000 less in its overall budget than last year.
STATEWIDE CUTS FOR SENIOR SERVICES
Jones said that every nutrition-related service in the area received a 12% funding cut, but senior services related to transportation were funded 13% less, and miscellaneous services received 14% less.
“We’re at the point where folks are going to have to sit on a waitlist until there’s an opening because (providers) can only budget for how much funds they have from a business (stance),” Jones said. “You have to do that, but you hate to have people sitting on those wait lists knowing that they might have food insecurity and not be able to access food.”
Aside from Meals on Wheels Mesa County, nutrition services for older adults within the Northwest area include two independent programs in Garfield County — Grand River Meals on Wheels and Meals and More — and county-facilitated dining sites, as well as dining sites and meal delivery services operated by the Moffat and Rio Blanco counties.
According to Jones, the state and federal governments added new funding sources this year, yet the overall budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the year prior. That deficit is primarily because the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act funds and the previously consistent state homestead funding are gone.
De Bock said that even if funding had remained the same, grocery-related expenses sharply increased during the pandemic, but it has begun to level out. However, Jones said grocery expenses are still a notable struggle for the rural programs, as there are less suppliers and less opportunities to negotiate prices.
“(In Meeker), they have to use two different food vendors when it would be a lot more cost-effective if they could use the same one,” Jones said. “Then, they could order in bulk for both areas, but they can’t because one vendor will only go this far and the other vendor will only go this far.”
INCREASING NEED
Across the region, but especially in Mesa County, funding has also been strained because of a consistent growth in the older adult population; and consequently, the need for these services. According to the Mesa County Public Health Birth Trends Report, around 20% of county residents are 65 years old or older (7% more than the state average).
Jones said Colorado is one of the fastest-aging states in the country, estimating the number of those ages 65 and older will grow 25% by 2030. She also said that around 9% of the region’s older adults are currently living in poverty, which is about 5,000 people.
Jones said the current funding is simply not enough to reach all of those people, but investing the money to do so would likely save much more cash in the long-run.
“Ultimately, for a lot of these folks — because we do serve low-income populations — (we are) delaying them or preventing them altogether from having to go onto long-term care via Medicaid, where the state of Colorado is then paying for some of these services,” Jones said. “We know it’s a lot more expensive if people go onto the long-term care Medicaid program than it is to keep them in their home and utilizing contracted providers with AAA dollars to provide those services.”
“It’s been proven that services like Meals on Wheels keep people out of nursing homes and assisted living, which is just less money for all of us,” de Bock added.
The nutrition provided via Meals on Wheels is certainly a major factor in keeping the older adult population healthy and in their own homes, but the program’s benefits extend much further, according to de Bock and Meals on Wheels Mesa County volunteer Gail Dutton.
MORE THAN A MEAL
“The volunteers are super key in seeing changes,” de Bock said. “They see them every day, so they can notice declines and things that are going on and connect the dots so that we can get that client connected with the extra services. That’s a vital part of the program.”
De Bock added that Meals on Wheels is often a “gateway” for older adults who often have trouble asking for help, as it can be easier to accept and program volunteers can connect clients with additional services as they see fit.
Even if no additional services are necessary, Dutton said the clients can benefit from the check-ins and social connections. She said the importance of that human contact was especially evident after delivering meals during one of last week’s major storms.
“Some of the residents got really scared in Orchard Mesa because some of the trees came down and they had hail,” Dutton said. “I was OK, but some of the clients were very concerned and scared.”
“Just to know that somebody’s there to see them and that everything’s gonna be OK, I think really helped.”
Dutton added that the severe storm was hardly a deterrent, joking that the Meals on Wheels volunteers have outshone federal postal workers in the past.
“They were doing some construction on Unaweep … and Meals on Wheels would go in and deliver the meals, but the post office refused to deliver the mail,” Dutton said. “They only delivered it around once a week because it was too hard to get around the construction, but they could count on Meals on Wheels getting through the construction so that they could get their meals.”
“So, yeah, we’re better than the post office.”
Donations can be made to Meals on Wheels Mesa County through its website. Jones said those interested in helping can also do so by advocating to their representatives at the state and federal levels for increased funding.
