Meals On Wheels

Illness, disability and frailness can make meal preparation an ordeal. In bygone days, people would share their daily supper with needy neighors. Today, most of us work full-time and many of us do not know our neighbors. VNA Meals on Wheels serves as that friendly neighbor or loving family member.

With the assistance of a cadre of community volunteers, VNA Meals on Wheels delivers more than 2,600 nutritious hot meals to homebound ill, elderly and disabled persons in Dallas County each day. In 2002, 3,849 clients received 696,603 home-delivered meals prepared in VNA’s Beatrice M. Haggerty Kitchen at a cost of $4 per meal.

Lake Highlands volunteers deliver to two routes on the first full week of each month.  The first route is usually encompassed in the area North of Buckner, West of Garland Road and North to Kingsley and sometimes as far West as Audelia.  Clients live in private homes and apartment complexes.  This route usually includes 17 to 24 clients.

The second route is usually encompassed in the Lake Highlands area and includes both private homes and apartment complexes.

Each client receives a hot meal, with a bread, drink and dessert, mainly a piece of fruit.  On Fridays, a number of the clients receive weekend meals which come in the form of boxed lunches, with one marked for Sunday and the other for Saturday.  The boxed lunches usually include a sandwich, salad, drink and a dessert, usually a piece of fruit.

During the Winter, occassionally a "shelf meal" is sent in addition to the regular daily meal, and it includes nonperishable food items which should be available in times of extreme weather conditions when the Visiting Nurses Association considers it inadvisable for the volunteers to drive their routes.