Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Meals on Wheels volunteer driver Pete DuPont gets assistance from Melissa Dunkle in loading his vehicle with food at the Nashua Senior Activities Center Tuesday. While struggling to meet the increased demand due to the COVID-19 virus threat, Meals on Wheels is managing to make their deliveries to clients in the area.

MERRIMACK – Nashua’s two Rotary club got the proverbial ball rolling last week when each pledged $5,000 to Meals on Wheels, a boost that helped set the vital service on a track to continue bringing “essential, nutritious food and a friendly smile” to elderly and disabled people in the region.

Matt Laliberte, the chairman of Rotary Club of Nashua West’s Meals on Wheels committee, was out and about as usual Tuesday, his mask in place and clipboard in hand for one of the two routes he does each week.

Laliberte embarked upon Tuesday morning’s route from the Nashua Senior Activity Center, which has been closed down except for the kitchen, where staff and volunteers assemble and package the meals for delivery.

Moments before Laliberte arrived at the senior center, Pete DuPont, an occasional Meals on Wheels volunteer driver, drove off, his SUV filled with boxes and bags containing meals, along with a large cooler for the refrigerated and frozen items.

The COVID-19 virus threat forced Meals on Wheels, a program of St. Joseph Community Services that’s based in Merrimack, to make a public appeal for funds “so we can continue to meet (clients’) fundamental needs in this most challenging and difficult time.”

The agency, according to its appeal, is up against “a critical escalation in costs of food and services,” mainly due to increased production and delivery costs that are “over and above our usual costs.”

Throughout this week, the program is providing a two-week supply of shelf-stable, and frozen, meals to its roughly 16,000 Hillsborough County clients, at a cost of about $60,000.

Anyone able to help with a donation can go to www.mealsonwheelsnh.org and click on the “donate” link.

Anyone interested in volunteering over the next several weeks to load and deliver meals can contact the agency at 424-9967 or meals@sjcsinc.org.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

——

EDITOR’S NOTE: This content is being provided for free as a public service to our community during the coronavirus outbreak. Please support local journalism by subscribing to The Telegraph at https://home.nashuatelegraph.com/clickshare/checkDelivery.do;jsessionid=40C089D96583CD7318C1C1D9317B6162.

Newsletter