How Meals on Wheels Works

Dipping birds? Don't know, I just I just remember my grandmother had one where the bird would dip its beak in the water. All we have to do is arrange it so we can press the space bar. Uh. Well, we should be better than this, Chuck, because this is a very nice, wonderful humane episode. Humane and human even and human and it ties. Yeah, this is one of our what we like to do, a little awareness shows every now and then and meals on wheels, which, by the way, for the past two days in my head,

I've been going meals on wheels. What is that? You remember? It may have been a local thing when I was a kid. That was a thing it was called World of Wheels. It was like, I don't know if it was a car show or like one of those monster truck things, but it was. That's what they used to do, is World of Wheels. I got you. That's funny you say that, because I've had my own thing in my head. There was a thrill Kill Cult song that was in

the movie Cool World called Sex on Wheels. So I've been going meals on wheels, meals on whales, that's been That's weird though, that we each have just kind of had some weird loop in our heads. Maybe that helps us research maybe and maybe meals on eels And we'll get to the funding part of it at the end. But maybe they would have better chances getting federal funding if they had a cool theme song. Yeah, like by

the thrill Kill culture. That would surprise everybody, I think. So. So we are talking meals on wheels today just just to do our do diligence upfront. We just want to tell everybody in case you don't know what that is, but I'm sure most people do. Meals on wheels is a meal delivery program here in the States and Canada, Australia.

I think it's all over the place where if you are usually if you're a senior citizen, senior adult not quite sure what they go by these days, and you are homebound basically where you're able to care for yourself in your home, but you're getting up there in years and you haven't um gone into an assistant care facility, but you're still you don't have a out of contact, you might not have family around. What Meals on Wheels does is they bring you a meal once a day,

five days a week. She'll lunch and uh say, hey, how are you doing. Feeling good? Good? Okay, well we'll see tomorrow. Enjoy your meal and um. Just that little simple act of doing that, just apparently in research bears this out completely changes the life and and extends the life expectancy of people in that situation. Yeah, and it's not just uh, I mean, we'll get to some of

the other things they do. But the main three pronged reason for the home visit is the meal, like you said, the visit, and then the final thing is the safety check component, which is geez, uh, mr muldoon, you have a wire hanging out of your wall. Uh, and it's sparking, So let me see if I can get some help with you, get some help for you on that, sir, right exactly, that that could that could turn bad on

you exactly. So there's this there's this whole idea that just by showing up at somebody's house with a meal, um, you can you can just really vastly help improve their lives. And when I think about like meals on wheels or when I researched this stuff, it's like there's no like, if you if you've lost faith in humanity, just look

into meals on wheels like it. It it cancels out so much bad in the world, you know, and it takes like this this population that here in the West, Like it's very easy to become disconnected from your family because you're you're offspring. Your kids as some people call them, they grow up, they get their own jobs, they move around where highly mobile culture Western civilization is um and

you can find yourself basically alone. Like if you're friends with your neighbor and your neighbor dies or moves away, you don't know the new younger neighbors, maybe they don't care about you. Um, you can find yourself isolated and being socially isolated is a huge problem. So the idea that there's people out there who are strangers to you, who will come to your house and bring you a meal to make sure you're taken care of. That's there's humanity right there. In a nutshell. Yeah, we had Um

she's moved away now, but are are older? Um and jeez, I had no idea how old she was. She was one of those ladies, Miss Jesse, our neighbor, who could have been seventy or a hundred and six. I have no idea. Is she the one with the goats? No? No, no, we fed the goats again this morning. By the way, Um No. Miss Jesse and Mr Otis lived next door. Mr Otis had daily dialysis passed away um, which was very sad because he was just great. Um. But Miss Jesse was really nice. It took us a little while

to earn her trust. But um, she had her daughter Connie. He would come by and get her what she needs and bring your groceries. But we would always offer, you know, we're going to store. Miss Jesse need anything, and she would never take us up on it. But I think just us talking to her on a daily basis because she was one of these that would like you know, she she would open the blinds every time she heard

a noise in the neighborhood. She was very on it, which was great for when we went out town because Miss Jesse was the best like watchdog you could asked for. Did she give you a list of like teenagers that she spotted while you were gone whenever you return home. No, she just said that that ne'er do well, that guy

is up to no good. Anyway, She's a very sweet lady, and I think eventually we earned her trust, and I really got the sense that just us having a conversation with her from for five minutes getting out of the car meant a lot to her. Um, that's apparently what the research shows that that kind of thing has a pronounced impact on the life of somebody who has become socially isolated. But she moved away. Yeah, she's like nuts to those two. Yeah, someone bought her house. Uh, but

she's you know, she's doing great. The good end of that story. She did not pass away. She moved away, right, gotcha? So where did she move? Did she moved to an assistant care facility? And she moved into an other house. Does she moved in with her daughter. I think she may have moved in with her daughter. But it was funny, like she meant a lot to us, but it was sort of like so long, suckers, we didn't get it. Wasn't that like a cheerful goodbye. All of a sudden,

we're like you're moving. She's like, yep, sold my house and she was out of there right, So shuts the U haul gets in, flips you the bird on the way. Yeah. So well then this one's for miss Jesse. Yeah there you go. Um okay, so well, let's talk a little bit of history. It's about meals on wheels because despite how utterly human it is, um, it was started by robots. It was robots who are trying to win us over

before they take over. Very strange, um the the it hasn't been around for as long as you think, although I think that it came about right around the time when the need first arose because I was doing some research and it seems like with industrialization and the rise of like factory work, that is are a lot of the the schism between our traditional society that was usually a grarian based and this new modern society we live in really began, and around that time is probably when

you would have started to have found some isolated seniors, is like a growing population. Yeah, that makes sense because I found it interesting that, uh, and we'll dig into the history here, but I found it interesting that it seemed to pop up within about a fifteen year period in many countries around the world, and not because they had heard of it. You know, It's not like they read on the internet in nineteen fifty four that hey,

someone in England is doing this. So it I think that has a lot of merit to it, that the need was there kind of all at the same time, yeah and all. Yeah, and it also kind of underscores just how basically human and idea this is. You know, Alright, so World War two raging England, being bombed, neighborhood and regions being devastated. Uh, it became clear that people, you know, like literally just their home or kitchen were destroyed, so they couldn't do simple things like cook the meals they're

used to providing for their family. The Woman's Volunteer Service for Civil Defense came around and they said, you know what, we're gonna start delivering some some meals, some home cooked meals to people that whose houses have been devastated, who can't cook for themselves right now. They delivered them at first in baby carriages, which is where the that's the wheels, that's where it came from. Yeah, that that's what everybody around town called it. Um. They called it meals on wheels,

pretty neat. It was just just the It was not capitalized or anything like that. It was just kind of like the the slang term what the cool kids called.

About ten years later or so in Philly, uh in Pennsylvania, woman named Margaret Toy who became the first director of Meals on Wheels in the United States, she organized something called the Platter Angels and just by coincidence, there were some British students in Philly doing some social work at a community center where Mrs Toy volunteered, and they said, hey, this is a lot like what we've got going on in England with the Meals on wheels. Ditch that platter

angles angles angles there thinking of Joseph Angles. Ditch the Platter Angels name and call it meals on wheels. And I don't think they said ditch that name, but the does would be some pushy exchange theory. Uh you know those pushy British exchange students. They're the worst state. Surrounded poor Mrs Toy and like poked her in the shoulder and like blue cigarettes smoke in our face. Hey, platter angel right out of her hand. So that's how it

became meals on Wheels in the United States. And then over the next like twenty and thirty years in the US they started popping up all over the place. They did. And here's what you're kind of referring to earlier. So that was that same year in September in Um, South Australia, which is where Adelaide is. Shout out to Adelaide where the summerton man is from, right, Um, a woman named Doris Taylor came up with the same exact thing, and from what I understand, called it meals on wheels as well.

Is that correct? Yeah? She was something else man Um. She was disabled. The best I can discern is she had a fall when she was seven which gave her a limp, and then another fall when she was eleven that paralyzed her from the waist down permanently. Like that was it. That was it. She was wheelchair bound from

that point on. Yep, from that point on, and despite the fact that as an eleven year old in a wheelchair for life, she had a big heart and and realized that there was a need to provide for people in her community, just like was was going on in American Britain, and said, hey, what about bringing a meal to people? And then in September, like you said, meals on wheels of South Australia, Uh, which I had to look up on a map. I figured it was in

the South. Yeah, and in Australia it is. But it's a big chunk um, a big chunk of land at least, I don't know how populated it is. Well, if Adelaide's there, it's great. Well, yeah, of course it is. But that has grown. She actually lived long enough to see that grow into a huge organization. And um, I don't know, they have these all over the world and all over

the country here in America. But we just wanted to shout her out specifically for you know, being disabled herself and and going on to do like just this amazing thing. It's it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, And and so you think, like, okay, big deal, she's a wheelchair abound and she can she

can use her arms, she can juggle that kind of stuff. Nope, she had rheumatoid arthritis, crippling rheumatoid arthritis on top of all of the us and so she was just basically she had no use of any of her limbs and she still was out there raising like she had. She used her mind too to get other people to get off their duffs and help people less fortunate she was. She was an amazing person. It's pretty great. Five thousand clients in South Australia now ninety branches. Uh and this

is all because of Doris Taylor and then Chuck. So speaking of South Australia, you were you were onto something huge chunk land, not very populated. Adelaide is the capital with just under one and a half million people, and that's the population of South Australia as a whole. Well, there you have it. There's a lot of unused land there. Should we take a break? Oh sure, all right, let's do it. Okay, So meals on wheels starts springing up

as like these community programs all over the world. Right, just because there's a few spiritually aligned do gooders out there who have this good idea, and it just spreads and spreads and spreads. But the thing that they have in common, aside from the basic we bring a meal once a day to someone who can't get out of their house, they also had in common that they were community, grassroots organizations. That's how they that's how they operated, that's

how they were funded. That was it, and that was the case until I believe nineteen with the Older Americans Act, when the FEDS finally said, all right, okay, a good idea is a good idea, we'll cough up some money for your Meals on wheels programs. And it's been that way ever since. Customarily, the Older Americans Act provides about thirty percent of funding for the Meals on Wheels programs

in America, I should say, and then the rest. It's like it's an early public part private partnership, where the rest is meant to come from state and local governments, private donations, foundations, grants, wherever they can get money from. But the the the Meals on Wheels program is meant, ever since nineteen sixty five in the US, to have been able to rely on over a third of its annual budget coming from the US government to provide that

foundation so they can get the rest. Yeah, so that, like you said, is specifically because the O A A and delivered through the Office of Health and Human Services and got a shout out corporate donations because I feel like they, you know, people like to bag on big corporations, but um, part of their funding does come from corporations chipping in. And then you talked about grants. There are

three specific uh block grant programs. Uh the Community Development Block grant, the Social Services Block grant, and Community Services Block Grant. And just put a pin in that because that will come up again later. So um, again, the most of the funding comes from things other than the federal government, right, And and that there's another way that these this program is funded and this is kind of surprising to me, but it's from the people who are

the recipients of this aid as well. It is and this is actually another Doris Taylor innovation, at least in Australia. Before it was well you're this is charity, so here just take this, she was like, yes, we're gonna incorporate volunteers, and the volunteers don't need to be paid obviously, but we still need to pay for the food. We still need to pay workers to prepare the meals, and so obviously some of that could be donated, but yeah, sure not all of it. You just can't rely on that

always to be donated. You could kind of always rely that there's gonna be somebody there who will fill in for somebody who didn't show up that day in meal delivery, right, or you can go do that yourself. But the more skilled stuff, you need to be able to pay somebody so that they will show up and do this stuff. Right. So the idea of having the people who can afford it pay for the meal, UM, that's that is kind

of innovative and it helps keep the program going. The thing is is if you can't pay for the meal you get that you get it for free. Well, and then there's a that's a continuum. There's a sliding scale between I can I can I can afford a little bit for this meal, um, here's here's some and then I think the people who are able to physically able to, but are financially unable to afford a meal UM are asked to volunteer to be a part of the Meals

on Wheels program. Themselves. Yeah, I'm a big You can call me an old hippie if you want, but the sliding scale is one of my favorite things. An old hippies like the sliding scale, sure, man, like everything from I mean when I was a young, broke mid twenties something and I wanted to go to a shrink, they you know, I found a shrink at a sliding scale. Like there are people out there to be like, you know, what,

what can you what can you pay? Right? And it wasn't some government program, it was a private uh therapist. And this is across the board. There are all sorts of people who offer sliding scales, like you know, meals of wheels. If you can pay a dollar, then that helps. If you can't pay anything, we'll give it to you if you can pay full price. I didn't see what

full price was for a meal on wheel. I saw somewhere and this is a just a meals on wheels um Like a volunteer who wrote something on Vox said that they they are usually about two dollars and five cents. That's full price, yeah, man, which is ridiculously low. Well yeah, because I guess they're only paying for food costs. And they're getting bulk you know, they're getting gallons of mayonnaise

at the warehouse. Yeah, you know, yeah, but you have to order about ten overage for mayonnaise to to cover shrinkage because everybody's always got their fingers in the man is joke as they're walking in and out of the kitchen. You know. That's what Pappy used to say, That's what Mr Otis always said. He probably did so. Um, so there is there is, there's money. There's financial contributions involved. But for the most part um the being a part of meals on Wheels as a recipient, it's based entirely

on need. And I think the first thing that they look at is your medical need, right, yeah, so how how able are you to get around your house? How able are you? And this is a this is one I hadn't thought of, But I'm like, Okay, well you can get up and get around your house, you can cook for yourself. Can you also go to the grocery store? Huge? Huge one. So you may be physically able to, um, hang out in your house and you know, maybe play canasta,

do whatever. But but getting to like, let's say you lost your driver's license or you don't have a car any longer, or or it's just getting to the grocery store and shopping and then getting back is just way too much. Um, you would probably qualify to be a Meals on Wheels recipient, right yeah. I mean there's a range of people like they also have uh like centers where they feed a lot of people like in a cafeteria setting, and they encourage you if you can get out,

you can still get your your really nutritious. Because I don't think we've said that yet, but that goes without saying these meals are specifically catered to the needs of the elderly, right yeah. I think ever since nineteen two, there was like an amendment maybe to the Older Americans Act that said, maybe get those those um single cigarettes out of that tray that you're bringing to the to the older seniors. Let's actually make this like like a

nutritious meal. Yeah, so you can go to a place and eat with a bunch of other people like you and have a good conversation if you can get out of the house. But the real focus in the core of the program are those we call them shut ins at our church. I don't know if that's a I think homebound is what they normally call them. Yeah, I think that's probably an antiquated Southern Baptist term, right, But we would deliver meals to shut ins through our church.

It wasn't like Meals on Wheels. And there are plenty of other programs that do this, but Meals on Wheels is definitely the biggest and broad ut. Yeah, I get the impression to that Meals on Wheels is in particularly concerned by competition. No, I don't think they're like, okay, as fine as long as everybody's getting their their meals. So, um, let's say you you are you qualify medically as somebody who is a Meals on Wheels recipient. Um, next they

would look at your finances, what can you for? What can't afford? And they're not going to like go through and dig dig through your check. They say, hey, give me a wallet, right right, let me see what's in there. Yeah, you go to grab it from and they just put their palm on your forehead and hold you back right. No, they're not gonna do anything like that. They're going to just ask you like what can you afford or what are you living on a month? How much extra income

maybe do you have. That's probably going to be the extent of it. I get the impression that it's largely an honor system kind of thing, right, and then if you if if you're like I just can't afford it, they'll say okay, great. Um. Depending on where you live, you will either be put into the rotation or you'll be putting sadly on a waiting list. And if you're put on a waiting list, there's you. You might be

waiting a little while before they can include you. The whole reason anybody would put you on a waiting list is funding. And we'll talk about funding later on. Um, let's stick to the good stuff right now. Yeah. So the meals that you're getting are or they're delivering, can be hot meals, they can be cold meals. They can be frozen if that's what you want. If you don't want to eat it, right then, uh, they can be

shelf stable or canned. Um. If you live way out in the sticks, you can probably arrange to have like a week's worth of meals delivered frozen. They really try to work with you because they try to, I mean, their goal is to say that there is no community in the United States that we cannot serve right. Yeah, I think if you like live out in remote Alaska, they're they're gonna be like, can we just bring you a week's worth of frozen meals? Can we just drop an elk off on your front porch and a buck

knife and a buck knife that's right? And you'll say, yeah, that'd be great. Well, the rural Alaskan, elderly Alaska would say, well, I'll just put it with my other nineteen buck knives and my other three elk and they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you got that many elk We're gonna share it with the rest of the community. And you'll say, uh, that's

wealth distribution New socialists. So here's one interesting stat though that I saw that um less than five percent there's an estimate, but less than five percent of eligible older Americans receive meals, and that on average they received less than three meals per week. Man, that is that is sad. It is sad. And I don't know if that's is that because they can't the program can't be robust enough.

I'm sure there's a million different factors involved, but I would I would be very surprised that the leading factor was not funding. Yeah, because there seems to very much be a will. There seems to be a pretty great system, decades old system in place the through communities throughout the uh the country. Um, I would guess that it's just having enough money to add another person to the list, you know. Yeah, well that's a sad wait list, I

would guess. Also, volunteer volunteers are They're probably another fact after as well. I was looking into volunteering. Actually after doing this research, I was like, man, that's because not only do I want to teach, Like having a kid really can inspire you to be a better person because you start to think, oh, well they're gonna be looking to me and what I do. Uh. And it's great to donate money to stuff, which is we're good about.

But volunteerism is a really big thing that I think not enough people do and I certainly didn't do enough of that. I'm going to try and teach is an example going forward, Like man hours person hours is vital to every program like this in the world. Yeah, Like money is one thing, and funding is super important, but it goes lockstep with people showing up and saying I will help you do this. Yes, yes, that is what Well put Chuck Well put man, because yes, donating money

is great. You could be like, wow, we've got ten thousand meals, but they're all just sitting here rotting because we don't have anybody to deliver all of them. It is very important. Emily did it in high school. Actually, oh yeah, I'm totally not surprised. Meals on wheels. Yeah she did. She's a candy striper and died meals on wheels and um, she said it was tough. You know, sometimes this is the only human contact these people have

in a day. Uh, And she said it and she really takes stuff on emotionally and it's hard for her. And she said as an adult, she said, I don't know if I would be able to do that, Like I'm gonna try something else. But she said, all I would think about is I need to help that one person. I need to like try and help like move them into a different house or and then the next person and the next person exactly. But she said, it's it's tough to Um, you know a lot of these are

very very sad cases. And if you have in your mind, like you know, I just whistle zippity dude on bounce around the neighborhoods and drop off meals and have a quick chat. I mean it can be that, but it's it takes an emotional toll. So like hats off to people who are able to do this and put it in the right place in their own emotional life, right, right. So, so any anyone can be a Meals on Wheels volunteer, right, no matter how emotionally invested you are in other humans.

And the reason why anybody can do this is because Meals on Wheels. Well, we've we neglected to say there is an organization called Meals on Wheels of America and they are basically like the the lobbying central umbrella unit of all the independent Meals on Wheels programs. There's like five thousand of them around the country. Right, So they do advocacy, they issue grants, they figure out best practices, and one of the things they've said is like here

is what you as a volunteer should expect. Right, Yes, you're going to be confronted by people you want to help, but all you have to do is like all that's expected of you, and you can you can get as involved in invested as you want, but all that expected of you, and it is enough to to bring a meal to this person's house, say hey, how are you doing? Good to see you. You're looking fine today, um, and I'll see you tomorrow. You take care of yourself, see

you tomorrow. That that they've figured out that that is enough to keep people from being completely disconnected from society. And again, the food that you're bringing them is is helping keep keep them alive. I read that something like three thousand to five thousand seniors in America die of malnutrition every year every year. This is not like a nineteen seventeen statistics, this is this is this year. Um. So the actually it was based on two thousand and

six data. I can't imagine it's gotten too terribly much better. But the fact is that if you volunteer just doing those those basic things, it's it's enough to have a major impact in the life of somebody. Me. Do you want to take another break? Yeah, let's all right. We're gonna go deliver three meals and we'll be back right

after this. You know, I'm glad you said that before break about this is like what all you have to do because I didn't want to scare people off by volunteering because of Emily's taking things on emotionally, Like, there are people that are will do a great job going out there checking in on people and can successfully do that.

Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, totally. And I'm sure like and I'm sure Emily would would tell you that there's probably probably recipients out there you're like, good lord, that person is a jerk, or this person is sweeter than that person, or this person is really easy to talk to, Like I'm sure just the experience on both sides is different for each interaction as well. For sure. Yeah,

I think that was that was worth saying. For sure, there's that we should just say though when we were talking about what you're expected to do, So there's basically three things you are doing just by visiting. And they said that they can, um, they can arrange your your Meals on Wheels volunteer schedule. If you want to volunteer, just go look up Meals on Wheels America and they will connect you to whoever's got a program going in your community. It's easy as pie. Um. They they will

whatever your schedule allows. That's great, they'll take it. That would be fine for them if it's like, call me if you need somebody to fill in, or I can do this once a week, or I can do this once a month, or I can do this five days a week. Um. What they typically say is, you don't have to um be independently wealthy, you don't have to be unemployed. You you can do this on and typically if you have an hour and a half for lunch break,

they they can put you on a meals on Wheels route. Yeah, and they typically try to fit the meal deliveries into that lunch break and it's a mid day delivery. But if you're like, man, I can't get away from my job, so sorry, I can't help you, They'll say, no, no, no, no no, We'll find something for you to do after hours. There are there are always plenty of things to do, whether it's helping out in the warehouse or if you want to volunteer in the kitchen. You can do stuff

like that too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially I would guess if you have like food prep experience, like like actual experience, they would probably say, yes, I'm sure there is a need for that. Ye. So volunteering is very easy. The program is really good. What you're doing again is you're showing up with a good meal. U is usually I saw somewhere. It's like a third of of UM the daily calories of people who are receiving the meal UM.

And just that alone is worth bringing a meal for, even if it's the biggest jerk in the world or you're the biggest misanthrope in the world. Just giving them this meal can do things like help them recover from disease faster, illnesses or conditions faster, UM keep them mentally acute. There's a lot of just benefits to having like nutrition on a daily basis that you take for granted because you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like

it's nothing. But imagine if you can't make it to the story to get peanut butter or jelly, or your handshake too bad to to spread the peanut butter the jelly to to be able to have that meal. That alone does it, right. But then the fact that they added in these other two layers, that there's the UM, like keeping social isolation at bay what they call UM and meals on wheels, just a friendly visit where you're

to chatting saying Hi, how's the weather. You don't have to be a particularly great conversationalist, but just saying to say hi basically, and then you know, asking if they need anything, looking around, making sure that they haven't fallen is a big one. Like just just keeping tabs on

this person five days a week. Just having people who are going to their house that it's going to cut down in the amount of time between something happening to them like a fall and somebody noticing that they they're not answering their door any longer. Yeah, and that's not all.

I didn't realize this, but there are and because there are more than five thousand UM Meals on Wheels programs in the United States, it really varies per community as to what it's like, but they all fall under that banner. But in some programs you can get pet food delivered for your cat UM. Sometimes they can offer home repair services. Sometimes they can UM offer transportation services if you have to go the doctor h if there's bad weather coming up,

you can get emergency meals UM. They're they're just all sort of like hospital discharge pro rams UH to reduce readmissions there. Sometimes they have gardens that they grow their own, like the Meals on Wheels garden will grow vegetables, um right, that they can. You know, it's like a farm to table meal delivered to your own right exactly. You're like, I've had better buck choy, but thank you. So it's

pretty cool, man. I mean it's hard to uh, there's so many great organizations in the world that help people, but Meals on Wheels is like they're really up there. I agree wholeheartedly. So um there, if you talk to anybody in Meals on Wheels or anybody that has anything to do with aging, they will they will. You'll find that they're like biting their nails and looking around nervously

while they're talking to you. And the reason why is because remember the baby boom that happened after World War Two, and then we did and they turned into hippies, and then they turned into stockbrokers, and then they turned into um kind of oren again hippies a little bit after they made their millions. Well now they're just they're they're they're the biggest population in the country and there um

aging and they're aging fairly fast. And we are not set up at this moment to handle what's being called the silver tsunami, this massive influx of aging people into our economy, into our social structures, into UM needing social services, needing healthcare were we might be set up for it, maybe, but we're certainly not funding it correctly. And one of the programs that is really poised to take a big hit is Meals on Wheels. Yeah, so are we gonna

go with the funding talk here? I think so. Uh. March of two thousand seventeen, there or a bunch of big headlines made when UM the President's budget chief Mick mulvaney said, you know, they released what's called their skinny budget, which is basically where everybody can look and see in a broad sense of what's being funded, what's being cut as far as their budget goes. And Meals on Wheels was was one of the things mentioned, and mcmulvaney said that it's a program is one of many that is

just not showing any results. What was his quote, which is I think they call that foot in mouth disease because that was a really dumb thing to say, Well, because yeah, what I want to know is what where

is he getting that? Like what does that mean? Because there are there have been plenty of legit peer reviewed studies that that show that meals on wheels is a very effective program, right because like just almost immediately people started like tweeting and reporting on studies that show that, um, yeah, there's that actually really good results from meals on wheels In addition to just keeping people alive, it's um it actually is shown to like improve their lifespan, to improve

their nutritional health, to um reduce social isolation. And the point of it. The biggest result too, is there's this big push and there has been for a couple of decades now to to get what are called low care UM Medicaid recipients out of assisted living for a couple of reasons. One their low care meaning they can care for themselves. They just have been moved into a home or whatever you want to call it. That's not a

nursing home yet. Assisted living is just basically like you're you're at like a senior living facility, but it's not necessarily you're not necessarily receiving nursing care. Right. UM, those people who are low care UH senior citizens, they can live on their own, and if they live on their own, they cost a lot less to society. Then if they

were in these assistant care facilities. Now, if you're going to encourage people to live independently, what's called aging in place, which means you stay in your home as you age, you they have to have a lifeline of connection to the rest of society. And there's a number of different programs that the Older Americans Act addresses this through, but one of them is Meals on Wheels. So if you're gonna have it one way, you've gotta have the other thing too, is the point. Yeah, there's a few um

stats here. Here's one the average cost of a one month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home delivered meals five days a week for seven years uh. And another one UH. Two thousand thirteen study from Brown University said that in most states, increasing Meals on Wheels enrollment would result in a net savings from decreased Medicaid costs from nursing home care. And then they found just literally

as far as the health goes uh. They did through the a ARP they did a study that said that there were statistically significant differences and health benefits among the three growth groups of people UM, people who got meal deliveries, people who didn't and people who were on waiting list was that the yep, exactly and basically the people who had face to face visits, they had the highest gains. So there is something to this. Another human being touching

you physically and handing you a meal. Uh and it's touching you physically in an appropriate manner. Yeah. Uh So I did some digging on this this funding because it's really hard to to go through the web of numbers

on how what a budget cut means. Um So, what this budget cut is proposed as right off the bat, cutting three million dollars from the o A A where the of the actual federal funding comes from, right, which is a problem because they need an increase from what I saw of twelve percent a year, not a decrease

of any kind. Yeah, we should point that out. This is an organization that already was hurting, right and and with the silver tsunami coming down the pike, if the people who are going to continue to need the expanded version of meals on wheels, you you need more funding and apparently twelve percent increase of years what they're asking for. Right.

So remember earlier I said put a pin in those three block grants the c d b G, s s b G, and the c s b G. Uh, the Trump budget completely eliminates all three of those, not just the money, but like there are no more block grants, those three gone, right, And there I have to say there was some pretty poor reporting around that mc mulvaney press conference because he was largely talking about cutting block grants,

which is three billion dollars from the federal government. He he just decided to use meals on wheels as a a poster child for the block grants that don't get results because state, state, and local governments use block grants to a kind of stuff, all sorts of different things. One of the things that they customarily using force to

additionally fund local meals on wheels programs. Right, but that was just the absolute worst program he could have picked, because not only is it like no, it's as they actually do bring meals to people and keep them alive. That's the result, number one. But then the fact that there's all these peer reviewed studies that show like, even beyond that basis or that basic, that basic need that's being met, it's better than that. That was just a

terrible one to pick on. And so trying to find out the actual money is is really hard because the way it's parched out, like you said, with these plot

grants going in all different directions. But they finally got an estimate, they think from a senior Office of Management and Budget official that it looks like it would be about forty eight million dollars from that's forty five million from the block grants and three million dollars from the oh A A. It's about forty eight million bucks, is their best guess of what meals on wheels would be reduced annually when they needed more money to begin with,

and it's about a one point four billion dollar annual operations. So you can say it's only a three percent cut in federal funding or an overall funding, but a three percent cut when people are on waiting list and they needed three I mean, I'm not gonna say a three percent increase. Probably needed more than that twelve a year. Oh, they needed twelve a year and they're getting a three

percent shortfall cut right. Um. And again when you're talking about like figuring out where to put your money, like I've got another one for you ready for this? You kind of touched on it. But that so the annual meal cost according to Meals on Wheels America, the main the main group that kind of oversees all the independent groups,

it's about sixty five dollars for the year. For the year. Okay, The cost of one day in the hospital, according to Mathematica Policy Research is no. I'm sorry that Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is seventy for one day in the hospital. Right, So the idea um that that this isn't cost effective is is pretty wrong. And then the other aspect of it, like the fact that this is that like being able to stay in your home and age in your home

apparently extends lifespans quite dramatically. I saw one that said that healthy, active, seventy eight year old person living independently has a life expectancy of an additional fifteen or more years, So ninety three. That's not bad, right, But that when they enter a long term care facility that life expectancy decreases automatically by fifty according to this one study. So there's there's a really big um. There's good reason to to let people stay in their homes or help them

stay in their homes. There's a couple of them. Uh, if they want to of course, if they want to go live somewhere because there's more um socializing or or better food, or who knows, if you want to go live in a a secure facility, I say, yes, do that.

I think there should be plenty of choice, plenty of individual choice, depending on the circumstances and the needs and the desires of the individual um for our aging population, no matter whether they're baby boomers or generation ex eventually whoever. I think, once you reach a certain point in your life, you've contributed enough and you deserve to be taken care of by the rest of us. Agreed. That's that's my

two cents. Yeah, man, do you got anything else? Uh No, It's just so sad that as you age you should be able to like have a dignified existence. Still, yeah, you know, and not everyone has kids who make enough money to take care of you or to put you in the most expensive, really great quality nursing home. Um, or you might just have terrible kids. That's a good point,

you know anyway. Yeah, that's all I have to say. So, we we were told that meals on Wheels has like this big um push going on right now, um, which we were like, well, well, we'll release an episode about that. And because it's good. So they have something called America. Let's do lunch dot org. I think it's like a volunteer campaign drive um, and you can also donate to you can do both. You can do one, you can do the other. Who knows, but do something? How about that? Yeah?

I mean just go to Meals on Wheels America on the web or America let's do lunch dot org. For sure. There you go and be human? Huh if you uh? Oh wait, no, Chuck, we haven't gotten there yet. Since I said be be human, it's time for listener mail. You know what, let's skip listener mail this week, and let's say use that extra ninety seconds to go to your laptop and just do a little investigating on meals

on wheels. Okay, we'll wait, all right. If you want to get in touch with this, especially, let us know about a cool, interesting or crazy meals on we experience. We would love that. You can tweet to us at josh um Clark or s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant or slash stuff you should know. Oh yeah, you can catch up with Chuck too on Twitter at

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