Volunteers deliver

Hundreds of volunteers are required to help dish out the Meals on Wheels (MOW) program around the West Island each week.

In Dorval, MOW is co-ordinated by Joan Fowell, who first volunteered with the program about 10 years ago. The Dorval operation is centred in the Elizabeth Russell Centre on Dawson Avenue.

“I have a team of 84 volunteers; shoppers, drivers, cleanup crew and cooks,” Fowell said, adding it’s hard to attract enough volunteers since some of them can only come out to help once a month but hot meals are delivered twice a week. “We deliver them hot,” she said. “The food is tasty; it’s not ‘institutionalized.’ These are really good meals, some people cut them in half to make two out of them.”

Cooking starts at about 8:30 a.m. with the hot meals and desserts ready by 11 a.m. for delivery, which takes about two hours, Fowell said.

While it is a challenge to make sure there are enough volunteers in place for the various tasks, one mainstay is Fran Armitage who has been with Dorval MOW since the group first started in the early 1970s.

Armitage, 79, still loves to cook for MOW, which prepares and delivers food twice a week. “I enjoy it because it gets me out of the house,” she said. “Sometimes when they run out of people, I help deliver. It’s wonderful to see the people who you are helping.”

As for cooking, Armitage said she tries to be imaginative when it comes to preparing meals and often brings recipe ideas from home.

MOW, which first started in the region in 1969, provides hot nutritious meals to homebound or isolated seniors and to those with reduced autonomy. Currently, about 800 volunteers work in 13 MOW kitchens in the West Island, helping some 400 people each week.

The demand for volunteers is expected to grow in the next decade, according to Volunteer West Island officials. A study by l’Insitut de la statistique du Québec indicates the West Island population is aging more rapidly than that of Montreal. Within the next 10 years, people 65 and over will comprise more than 20 per cent of the total West Island population.

For more information on volunteering, check www.volunteerwestisland.org or call 514-457-5445, ext. 225.

Chronicle, Jacques Pharand