Lisa: Welcome to Aging In Full Bloom with Lisa, I'm your host,
Liza, and I have a special guest actually in person with
me, we were just laughing about that today because we do so
many interviews over the phone.
Stephanie Sparrow Hughes, I get that right.
Yes, you are from LifeCare Alliance and that is a local
organization here in Columbus, Ohio, and they do all kinds
of things. I know a little something about LifeCare
Alliance because back in the day when I was in the field
selling, we had Franklin County Task Force used to meet
there. They might still meet there, I'm not sure.
And so we would have lunch there once a week.
Great food, amazing food, and every now and then someone
would come in and tell us about the 112 things you do.
And I was always overwhelmed at the long list.
Probably your signature thing that the community knows
before is Meals on Wheels, but that's just one of your
programs. What do you want us to know?
Tell us all about all the things you do, or maybe spotlight
the top. I don't know.
10 or 12.
Stephanie: Well, thank you so much, Lisa, for having me on your
program. I really appreciate being here to share all of the
work. Like you said, we have so many programs here at
LifeCare Alliance, so I really just want to do an overview
of all the Meals on Wheels programs and all of our other
programs that we offer.
Of course, our signature program is Meals on Wheels.
Yeah, most people know about that particular program, and
we are so in need of volunteers for that specific program
for Meals on Wheels here locally.
We are actually in five different counties that we service
for Meals on Wheels and Franklin County, Madison, Marion
Champagne and Logan counties.
All right. And we deliver meals seven days a
Lisa: Week because people eat.
Stephanie: Absolutely, absolutely.
And we are so proud that we have a zero waitlist for our
Meals on Wheels program.
So if there is someone in need for our services for Meals
on Wheels, they can give us a call and we can do that
assessment for them to if they are in need of the program.
Lisa: All right, so let's talk about that program for a moment.
Who pays? How does it get paid for?
Is the is it a cost that gets moved to the the person who's
getting the meal or how does that work?
Stephanie: Great question. We do have different funding sources,
primarily the majority of our clients do not pay for that
meal. They again, they would give us a call.
Our number is six one four four four four meal.
Give us a call and we'll do that assessment.
But primarily, clients that receive meals on Wheels do not
pay for that service. There's a small number that may pay
for that service, but most most of them do not pay for the
service.
Lisa: Who does pay?
Stephanie: We have different funding sources federal, state, local.
We are have a huge grants team that we have a grant.
Yes, we we always are looking for grants to for providing
our services for our clients.
Lisa: Yeah, I think I remember when some of those things come up
for on the ballot, right?
And oh yeah, and we have to vote on them and we're out
supporting those efforts because people, especially the
elderly and seniors, rely on this service for a variety of
reasons. It's not always what you think, but if for some
reason you have difficulty preparing a meal, maybe it's you
have difficulty getting out to grocery shop, you don't have
the means for that. Maybe it's an absolute issue of
affordability. This is a great program.
And is it one meal a day?
Is that how it works?
Stephanie: Well, typically we have a variety of different meals that we
offer. We have one hot meal that's provided some clients
receive either to one meal, two meals, or we also provide
frozen meals, which are packaged in five or seven.
So they may receive five to seven meals once a week so they
can reheat those meals during the course of the week.
So we do have different meal options again, the hot meal.
We have a vegetarian, kosher, mechanical soft.
So just depends on what that client is in need of.
And again, the meals are delivered at lunchtime.
So that's really the perfect time for the meals to be
delivered. It's not dark in the early mornings or when it's
daylight savings time in the evening, so we do sometimes
deliver two meals for that client at lunchtime.
So they have a meal at lunch and then they can eat the
other meal later in the evening.
Lisa: And I know that that's that's amazing.
So you rely on volunteers to actually deliver the meals,
and that's what you said you're in need of.
Stephanie: Absolutely, we.
Prior to the pandemic, we were delivering over 5000.
Meals every single day.
Hmm. We are the number one meal provider in the country and
there's so many people that are in need.
So you can imagine how many volunteers we would need to
deliver those meals every single day, said
Lisa: Prior to the pandemic.
Stephanie: Exactly. So that was prior to the pandemic with the
pandemic. You can imagine so many more people at home.
Other support systems have been compromised with, you know,
making sure that they're safe.
So people are not able to get out as much.
So we really increased our meal delivery over sixty five
percent during the pandemic.
Oh my gosh. So a huge increase of up to seven thousand
meals a day that we were delivering during the pandemic.
And one of our models is really to work with companies to
allow their associates to go out during their workday to
deliver those meals.
And guess what?
The pandemic shut everything down.
So now the companies that we were working with, some of
them were working remotely, which makes it more difficult
to get out and volunteer.
And of course, you know, people want to be safe during the
pandemic.
Lisa: Yeah, well, and I even think of our own company.
I know we did Meals on Wheels at one of our nursing homes
here in Columbus.
And really, we can't spare the staff these days to let them
leave at lunch to do anything because we're so short
staffed. So it's just and even if we had the staff, as you
said, the need is great for them to be on campus and taking
care of our residents and our customers.
So this pandemic changed the way we've been
Stephanie: Very challenging, but we have had a lot of volunteers step
up as well because when some people were working from home
or unfortunately some people were laid off, they gave them
some additional time to get out and volunteer.
One of the things that we really focus on on live paralyzed
is we want to make it easy for you.
As easy as
Lisa: Possible, people like easy.
Stephanie: Yes, I'll tell you how easy it is for you to go out and
volunteer. Okay?
Our main location is at six 70 Harmon Avenue, and that is
in the Franklin, Tenn., area.
However, we have 40 locations all across our city.
Forty four
Lisa: Oh four oh
Stephanie: Locations where you can pick up the mail bags and
conveniently deliver where you live or work.
So if you are in Dublin, if you're in Grove City Canal,
Winchester Westerville, wherever you're located, we deliver
those meal backs to you so you can deliver in specific
areas. So whether you're a company, whether you're working
from home, we want to make it easy for you.
Lisa: And really, this is about an hour commitment.
I would say it takes about an hour or about
Stephanie: An hour, an hour and a half, and it's totally up to you how
often you want to volunteer.
We love companies, schools, churches, civic organizations
or even individuals to pick up those meals and deliver them
at your convenience.
Lisa: You can do it as a group event.
I know some of our youth groups at our church have done
that, and that's been fun.
How many meals does the typical volunteer deliver?
Like if I wanted to volunteer, would I be just doing one or
two, 10 or 12?
Would it be up to me? How's that look?
Stephanie: So typically a mail route has about 10 to 12 meals on that
route. And again, you would determine which a specific
location you would like to deliver from.
So for example, if you're in Westerville, you pick up those
meal bags at our Westerville location and deliver in that
specific area.
So you're not delivering, you know, all across town, you
Lisa: Don't need MapQuest or Google Maps.
Stephanie: You could use it if you want.
You know, we we provide all the information for you.
We have a delivery record with the client's address, their
name, of course, and their phone number.
So you have all that information in addition to the
directions to get to each household.
Lisa: But sure, your your route is concentrated.
Yes, you're not going from Westerville to Grove City.
Stephanie: Oh, absolutely.
And you know, most of the homes are in that same, you know,
specific area that you're delivering to.
Lisa: What I also find interesting is some of the neighborhoods
that you named are affluent, and people sometimes assume
falsely that it's only people who are challenged in terms
of resources who need these services.
But that isn't so.
So no matter where you live, you can help if you want.
Speaker2: Absolutely. Our clients are based on if you can safely
prepare a meal or not.
Yeah. So anyone who cannot safely prepare a meal by
themselves would will be someone with.
It would be considered as a client for us.
So it's not based on financial need.
Right? Primarily, again, most of our clients do not pay for
their service. They are typically low income, but not
necessarily. And again, a small portion do pay for the
service. So we have clients in Upper Arlington or other
areas as well, and some of them may pay a small fee for the
service.
Speaker1: And the point here I can read the emails already.
I'm not saying that low income people don't deserve a
helping hand. Don't get it twisted.
What I'm saying is no matter where you live there, there
are needs to be filled because sometimes people think,
Well, that's I don't want to drive there and do, no, it's
right in your own backyard.
Speaker2: Absolutely.
Speaker1: There's opportunity for everyone to get involved here.
So that's tremendous.
Seems like seven thousand seven thousand five hundred meals
a day might be enough for y'all, but it's not.
What else do you do at Life Care Alliance?
Speaker2: So again, I want to focus on on the volunteer piece, and
then I'll also talk about our other programs.
Okay. So how easy it is to volunteer?
We just give us a call six one four four four four meals.
Speaker1: I got that six one four four four four meal each.
Speaker2: We can easily get you signed up to volunteer.
We, of course, with a pandemic, we've uploaded all of our
forms on our website so you can just apply online and we'll
get you trained very quickly to get started with
volunteering. And we try to have different models for
volunteering. If you want to upload your complete
application online and view the video online, you can get
signed up to volunteer, send us an email or you can come in
person and we'll train you in person.
You can fill out all the forms at our site as well.
Speaker1: Now I'm man asked a hard question.
Yes, what about screening?
Do you screen the volunteers?
Speaker2: Yes, we do. We do do a background check on the volunteers as
well. So we want to make sure
Speaker1: When you say that you mean a police check.
Yes. Ok. Yes.
So everybody's clear.
Speaker2: Yes, absolutely. We'll go and make sure our clients are
safe.
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, right?
Absolutely. And so that's another thing.
So I think about this.
We get everybody gets deliveries at home all the time these
days. So it's not such an unusual occurrence.
But sometimes these kids that deliver from Amazon run up to
your porch and then they run.
And I'm like, sooner or later, the dog is going to catch
him and bite him. You know, something bad is about to
happen. But here's my question how if I'm an elderly person
waiting on delivery and people in my neighborhood might
notice that I get a delivery?
And how do I identify your volunteer?
Is there a way for me to know that they're really from
Meals on Wheels?
Speaker2: Yes, we have meal bags that so once you sign up to
volunteer, you're picking up those meal bags.
The meal bags are labeled life Carolines.
Those do stay in your car.
However, you'll receive that the volunteer will be carrying
that meal to that client.
Speaker1: So the it ain't McDonald's.
Speaker2: No, no, you will definitely know it's a meal from Life Care
Alliance, and the clients know that that volunteer is
coming. There's a specific time frame that that volunteer
arrives. A lot of times the clients are right there at the
door, the waiting, they're ready for that, you know, meal
and also just a quick, really a quick conversation as well.
They're they're lonely and they love to see the volunteer
and say, hi, how you're doing.
Talk about their grandkids and things like that.
It's just a really in addition to that meal.
It's really a wellness check for that time as well.
Speaker1: And it's an opportunity to make a human connection.
Absolutely. And we know how important that is.
I did it for a little while, and these were the questions
like, what if someone else shows up?
And I'm like, Well, don't answer the door.
If it ain't going to be me, I'll tell you, I'll give
Speaker2: You a call. We definitely again, our volunteers identify
themselves as like Caroline's Meals on Wheels.
Speaker1: Yes. And if you've been receiving them, you know, some
things to look
Speaker2: For is just like in addition to that meal, there's a
delivery record.
And prior to the pandemic, clients would sign the delivery
record by their name.
So that confirms that they have received the meal.
At this moment, we have suspended that to just make sure
that that client is safe and not, you know, using that pen
to sign their name for that delivery record.
But at one point that will come back.
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.
And sometimes I think we get a and again, I'm not trying to
underestimate the need for us to be safe, but we get a
little paranoid.
Probably nothing bad has ever happened or it's been
minimal, but people are just so fearful about letting, you
know, answering the door.
I mean, the thing about the kind of deliveries we're
accustomed to getting even food, they don't even ring the
doorbell, they leave it on the porch and run away.
But you're going to have to answer the door.
Oh, absolutely. But you want that.
You want that opportunity.
Absolutely.
Speaker2: And we are delivering the meals at that doorstep.
So right now, the volunteers are not going inside the home
and then some clients may have a table or chair outside
where that volunteer says that meal?
Yeah, on that table or chair.
But once that volunteer confirms that that client is at
home, you know, if that client prefers for that volunteer
to step back for them to receive that meal, that works for
us as well.
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.
So you need volunteers?
Call six one four four four four meal.
If you're interested, you can come in if you want.
If you don't have access to the internet, you can do it
online. In terms of making application EU-Vietnam, you
screen them, you training them, you tell them what to
expect. Give them a route.
It's an hour a day.
Make it happen.
Absolutely. Somebody call that number and in spend one hour
a day doing something really significant for somebody you
don't know that needs an act of kindness and the world is
full of people.
Speaker2: Yeah, and you think about the last two years, you know what
we have been through?
Yes. And you know, a lot of people are just kind of feeling
down right now, you know, understandably and think about
how this will cheer you up.
So it's not just about that client.
Yeah. One of the really the perks of volunteering for this
specific program is that it makes you feel so good.
Speaker1: Amen, sister.
Speaker2: It does. It makes it really puts your life in perspective.
You know, I was just talking to one of our corporate
partners, and she was having a bad day, you know, things
going on at work. She says, I love Meals on Wheels because
when I go out and deliver, I can see that I'm making a
difference and I can see, you know, you know, like you
said, we all need to eat.
Yeah, most of us, you know, we have food in our
refrigerator. But just understanding that you're providing
a meal to someone.
Speaker1: Yeah, your basic necessity, a wellness
Speaker2: Check and you see that, you know, our clients are in need
and how much you may have versus our clients.
So it really just brings things really into perspective.
Speaker1: And you know, I love what you said about everything we've
been through. And not only that, but you know, everything
that's going on in the world right now.
You know, people say, I can't watch the news because it's
depressing and I get that.
But I'm one of those people where I need to know what's
happening to people, because then it helps me know how to
pray. I just don't want to just always pray thy will be
done. I think he expects us to put legs on our prayers and
do a little something more.
But I hear people say, What can I do?
What can I do?
We'll start by making a difference.
Maybe in your own backyard.
Right? And there is a feel good for you, for them, for the
community. Nobody loses.
Absolutely.
Speaker2: Everybody wants a win win.
Yeah. And we encourage people of all ages to come out
volunteer. This is something that you can do with your
kids, with your grandkids.
Again, we have school groups coming out anywhere from first
graders to college students going out and volunteering.
Church groups, civic groups, companies are allowing their
associates to go out and volunteer, providing those
volunteer time on their lunch time to go out.
And as a team, it's really a team building opportunity,
especially when you think about so many people are remote.
This is an opportunity to come together.
Yeah. Time to come together, deliver meals.
You can also volunteer at our site.
We need volunteers to pack all those meals.
So guess what? We have this huge kitchen where people can
come together is huge.
It is. It is.
Come to our site, get a tour, learn about all of our
programs and services, all of our different program areas.
You can even have an opportunity for our representative to
have lunch with our president and CEO Chuck Gehring.
He has those every so often come in, ask questions, learn
about what we do or feel free again.
Give us a call. I'm happy to meet new volunteers, have a
chat with them and meet with their teams to see how they
could be engaged with our programs.
Speaker1: Stephanie, how long have you been with LifeCare clients?
Speaker2: I have been with our life care alliance for three years.
And my role is working with corporate and community
engagement. So I work with a lot of companies that really
are looking for ways to engage their teams.
Yeah, versus it could be a one time opportunity to.
We have several companies that have adopted a route, and
what that means is that our team is going out either once a
month between. Wants to move to a couple of times a week to
volunteer, to deliver those meals.
Speaker1: Yeah, so this just isn't on the individual.
If you're listening to the program, maybe you're in some
kind of leadership position or some kind of management
position and you oversee a group of people and this is a
great team building opportunity for you.
So there are multiple ways that we benefit from this so
that we can benefit if we participate.
All right. What else do you do?
Speaker2: Ok? We have so many different programs and services.
So again, Meals on Wheels is our signature program.
We also have our Central Ohio Diabetes Association.
And that particular program works with kids that have
diabetes to provide prevention services and referrals and
information for kids to manage their diabetes.
Because you can imagine if your kid you feel like you're
the only one. Of course, of course.
And this is an opportunity for kids to don't
Speaker1: Feel that way, too.
Speaker2: This is an opportunity for kids to come together.
We have this cool summer camp that they can go to right
where they can just be a kid, you know, go swimming,
horseback riding, you know,
Speaker1: And understand that they're not alone in their disease.
Speaker2: They learn how to manage their diabetes themselves.
We just actually merged with not just recently Diabetes
Dayton. They are also one of our programs as well.
Again, teaching people how to manage their diabetes is one
of our other programs that we have our Columbus Cancer
Clinic. We provide free and low cost screenings to those
that are in need. And in addition to that, we have our
groceries to go pantry where we are providing two weeks,
two weeks worth of groceries to our cancer clients that we
have. So we need volunteers to go out and deliver those
groceries to those clients because you can imagine their,
you know, their health needs.
They really shouldn't be out as much.
So we have volunteers go out and deliver groceries to those
clients as well.
Speaker1: Wow. Anything else I know there is a long
Speaker2: List goes on and on.
Speaker1: Yeah, absolutely.
Give us a couple more, though, because I really feel like
in the address is the Mi six 70.
Harmon Yes.
Speaker2: Yes, that's our distribution location.
Speaker1: If you wanted to come and tour and have lunch with the CEO
to call all the stuff that you're suggesting.
But I feel like when you walk in like angelic music should
play or something because the work that you do is so
amazing. And it's it's for people in need and for people
who are struggling with disease.
And you know, new diagnosis is I mean, diabetes is one
thing. You're going to have to learn how to manage that.
That's a lifelong endeavor.
And people say, Well, you can cure it with diet.
No, you can correct it with diet.
And as long as you do the right things and you know you,
you'll stay there and that corrected place.
But cancer is probably a new diagnosis for most of us.
Most of us aren't born with it.
And oh my goodness, the hardship.
Oh, absolutely. And the difficulty there.
And Brad, I can't help, right?
Brett just lost his mom to cancer.
Yeah. And people just don't realize until you walk through
it. We're we're talking about walking through hell.
Let's just let's just be.
Let's just be honest about it.
And so in that dark time, when you understand that there
are people in the world who don't even know you but care
about your condition and care about what you're
experiencing, that changes everything, everything, right?
And that's what Life Care Alliance is all about.
Absolutely. Give us a couple more.
Speaker2: Yeah. So some of our volunteers that work with our Clemmens
Cancer Clinic and our Groceries to Go program have been
impacted with cancer, so that's a way for them to give back
in that specific area.
Yeah, absolutely.
About 70 percent of our clients with our Meals on Wheels
program have pets.
So this is one of our most popular programs.
We actually have a pet care program because we notice back
in the day some of our clients were feeding a portion of
their meal to their pet.
But you know, that cannot happen.
So we started that year, we started a pet care program
where we provide pet food for our clients as well.
So we actually have animal roots where you can deliver pet
food, toys and treats out to our clients.
Those are very popular, so those are mostly full, but we
also provide pet food for our regular routes as well.
So we need volunteers to come in.
We have a huge room with huge bags of pet food and we need
to downsize those bags into smaller bags.
So we have a lot of school groups again, churches, anyone
companies come out and really help.
Get those pet food items downsized and delivered to our
clients,
Speaker1: You do not have to wait to Thanksgiving to go to a
Speaker2: Food pantry. Certainly not.
We are three sixty five.
We are seven days a week delivering meals
Speaker1: Just like people, pets need to eat every
Speaker2: Day. Absolutely.
Yeah, we provide veterinary services for a small fee as a
small portion for that client to get their pets shots and
some other veterinary services that they may need as well.
So that's something that we cover as well.
Speaker1: What about the person that doesn't want to get involved?
Can they donate money?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker2: We make it as easy as possible.
Just go to our website.
Life Care Alliance dot org.
We that's how we operate.
You know, when you when you say, Well, how are you actually
doing all these programs, programs and services donations?
We have a team that, you know, apply for grants, but every
donation counts.
No, at whatever level, you can
Speaker1: Donate our goodwill and absolutely.
Speaker2: Yeah, you know, how do we get those meals out?
It's by donations.
Speaker1: We are so blessed in central Ohio to have life care alliance
at our disposal.
Whether we have a need or whether we need to volunteer,
that's a need to right.
Social connectedness is a thing it's important to all of
us. And thank you.
Thank you for the work that you do.
And I know it's the kitchen is huge, right?
Yes. Seven thousand meals a day.
Huge. These are big projects and they're ongoing, as you
say, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
Parting thoughts You want to leave our audience with yet
Speaker2: Another program that we have is our L.A.
Catering. So our L.A.
catering is a part of our social enterprise wing, so we
provide full scale catering for weddings, receptions,
corporate events.
So if you have a major event coming in, I just had one
yesterday and I didn't think of you.
Guess what?
All of those proceeds go back to serve our clients.
So is that a great
Speaker1: Way to Life Care Alliance in the future?
Yes, absolutely.
I never
Speaker2: Went. Whether it's a box lunch to a full scale catering
event, yeah, we can do that for you.
We'll come right to you or you can use our space.
We have a huge event space and you can support our work.
That is one way that you can support.
You talk about donations and how you can support us.
That is another way that you can
Speaker1: Support us and the food is yummy.
Speaker2: I will attest to this, but I'm glad you said it first.
Speaker1: Yes, the food is yummy.
All right. There's a lot.
I know you have a long list of things, but I think we have
given our listeners enough to think about.
We've given them a call to action.
We'd like you to volunteer, we'd like you to call in if you
have a need.
Don't be afraid to ask for help.
That's not an embarrassing thing.
And people say, Oh, I don't need help.
Why are you human?
At some point you will.
At some point we all do, and there's no shame in asking or
giving. That's what keeps us human listeners.
Thank you.
We hope you have enjoyed the program.
We hope you're in love with Live Care Alliance.
You should be as we are if you live in central Ohio.
Again, that number is six one four four four four.
Meal that's at six seventy Harmon Avenue in Columbus, Ohio.
Stephanie is wonderful.
She's beautiful, she's awesome, as is the work that she's
doing with this organization.
Till next time, may the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be forever at your back.