Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant's just the two of us.
Speaker 1: Today we had guest producer Tyler and here for a second.
Speaker 1: He pressed your cord and left and it's just us.
Speaker 1: It's cool. One of us needs to get our index
Speaker 1: finger working so we can do that. Well. Remember we
Speaker 1: used to say we were going to replace Jerry with
Speaker 1: one of those dipping birds. Yeah, is that what they're called?
Speaker 1: Dipping birds? Don't know, I just I just remember my
Speaker 1: grandmother had one where the bird would dip its beak
Speaker 1: in the water. All we have to do is arrange
Speaker 1: it so we can press the space bar. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: we should be better than this, Chuck, because this is
Speaker 1: a very nice, wonderful humane episode. Humane and human even
Speaker 1: and human and it ties. Yeah, this is one of
Speaker 1: our what we like to do, a little awareness shows
Speaker 1: every now and then and meals on wheels, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, for the past two days in my head,
Speaker 1: I've been going meals on wheels. What is that? You remember?
Speaker 1: It may have been a local thing when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. That was a thing it was called World
Speaker 1: of Wheels. It was like, I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a car show or like one of those monster
Speaker 1: truck things, but it was. That's what they used to do,
Speaker 1: is World of Wheels. I got you. That's funny you
Speaker 1: say that, because I've had my own thing in my head.
Speaker 1: There was a thrill Kill Cult song that was in
Speaker 1: the movie Cool World called Sex on Wheels. So I've
Speaker 1: been going meals on wheels, meals on whales, that's been
Speaker 1: That's weird though, that we each have just kind of
Speaker 1: had some weird loop in our heads. Maybe that helps
Speaker 1: us research maybe and maybe meals on eels And we'll
Speaker 1: get to the funding part of it at the end.
Speaker 1: But maybe they would have better chances getting federal funding
Speaker 1: if they had a cool theme song. Yeah, like by
Speaker 1: the thrill Kill culture. That would surprise everybody, I think. So.
Speaker 1: So we are talking meals on wheels today just just
Speaker 1: to do our do diligence upfront. We just want to
Speaker 1: tell everybody in case you don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure most people do. Meals on wheels is
Speaker 1: a meal delivery program here in the States and Canada, Australia.
Speaker 1: I think it's all over the place where if you
Speaker 1: are usually if you're a senior citizen, senior adult not
Speaker 1: quite sure what they go by these days, and you
Speaker 1: are homebound basically where you're able to care for yourself
Speaker 1: in your home, but you're getting up there in years
Speaker 1: and you haven't um gone into an assistant care facility,
Speaker 1: but you're still you don't have a out of contact,
Speaker 1: you might not have family around. What Meals on Wheels
Speaker 1: does is they bring you a meal once a day,
Speaker 1: five days a week. She'll lunch and uh say, hey,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. Feeling good? Good? Okay, well we'll
Speaker 1: see tomorrow. Enjoy your meal and um. Just that little
Speaker 1: simple act of doing that, just apparently in research bears
Speaker 1: this out completely changes the life and and extends the
Speaker 1: life expectancy of people in that situation. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not just uh, I mean, we'll get to some of
Speaker 1: the other things they do. But the main three pronged
Speaker 1: reason for the home visit is the meal, like you said,
Speaker 1: the visit, and then the final thing is the safety
Speaker 1: check component, which is geez, uh, mr muldoon, you have
Speaker 1: a wire hanging out of your wall. Uh, and it's sparking,
Speaker 1: So let me see if I can get some help
Speaker 1: with you, get some help for you on that, sir,
Speaker 1: right exactly, that that could that could turn bad on
Speaker 1: you exactly. So there's this there's this whole idea that
Speaker 1: just by showing up at somebody's house with a meal, um,
Speaker 1: you can you can just really vastly help improve their lives.
Speaker 1: And when I think about like meals on wheels or
Speaker 1: when I researched this stuff, it's like there's no like,
Speaker 1: if you if you've lost faith in humanity, just look
Speaker 1: into meals on wheels like it. It it cancels out
Speaker 1: so much bad in the world, you know, and it
Speaker 1: takes like this this population that here in the West,
Speaker 1: Like it's very easy to become disconnected from your family
Speaker 1: because you're you're offspring. Your kids as some people call them,
Speaker 1: they grow up, they get their own jobs, they move
Speaker 1: around where highly mobile culture Western civilization is um and
Speaker 1: you can find yourself basically alone. Like if you're friends
Speaker 1: with your neighbor and your neighbor dies or moves away,
Speaker 1: you don't know the new younger neighbors, maybe they don't
Speaker 1: care about you. Um, you can find yourself isolated and
Speaker 1: being socially isolated is a huge problem. So the idea
Speaker 1: that there's people out there who are strangers to you,
Speaker 1: who will come to your house and bring you a
Speaker 1: meal to make sure you're taken care of. That's there's
Speaker 1: humanity right there. In a nutshell. Yeah, we had Um
Speaker 1: she's moved away now, but are are older? Um and jeez,
Speaker 1: I had no idea how old she was. She was
Speaker 1: one of those ladies, Miss Jesse, our neighbor, who could
Speaker 1: have been seventy or a hundred and six. I have
Speaker 1: no idea. Is she the one with the goats? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: we fed the goats again this morning. By the way,
Speaker 1: Um No. Miss Jesse and Mr Otis lived next door.
Speaker 1: Mr Otis had daily dialysis passed away um, which was
Speaker 1: very sad because he was just great. Um. But Miss
Speaker 1: Jesse was really nice. It took us a little while
Speaker 1: to earn her trust. But um, she had her daughter Connie.
Speaker 1: He would come by and get her what she needs
Speaker 1: and bring your groceries. But we would always offer, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to store. Miss Jesse need anything, and she
Speaker 1: would never take us up on it. But I think
Speaker 1: just us talking to her on a daily basis because
Speaker 1: she was one of these that would like you know,
Speaker 1: she she would open the blinds every time she heard
Speaker 1: a noise in the neighborhood. She was very on it,
Speaker 1: which was great for when we went out town because
Speaker 1: Miss Jesse was the best like watchdog you could asked for.
Speaker 1: Did she give you a list of like teenagers that
Speaker 1: she spotted while you were gone whenever you return home. No,
Speaker 1: she just said that that ne'er do well, that guy
Speaker 1: is up to no good. Anyway, She's a very sweet lady,
Speaker 1: and I think eventually we earned her trust, and I
Speaker 1: really got the sense that just us having a conversation
Speaker 1: with her from for five minutes getting out of the
Speaker 1: car meant a lot to her. Um, that's apparently what
Speaker 1: the research shows that that kind of thing has a
Speaker 1: pronounced impact on the life of somebody who has become
Speaker 1: socially isolated. But she moved away. Yeah, she's like nuts
Speaker 1: to those two. Yeah, someone bought her house. Uh, but
Speaker 1: she's you know, she's doing great. The good end of
Speaker 1: that story. She did not pass away. She moved away, right, gotcha?
Speaker 1: So where did she move? Did she moved to an
Speaker 1: assistant care facility? And she moved into an other house.
Speaker 1: Does she moved in with her daughter. I think she
Speaker 1: may have moved in with her daughter. But it was funny,
Speaker 1: like she meant a lot to us, but it was
Speaker 1: sort of like so long, suckers, we didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that like a cheerful goodbye. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're like you're moving. She's like, yep, sold my house
Speaker 1: and she was out of there right, So shuts the
Speaker 1: U haul gets in, flips you the bird on the way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well then this one's for miss Jesse. Yeah there
Speaker 1: you go. Um okay, so well, let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit of history. It's about meals on wheels because despite
Speaker 1: how utterly human it is, um, it was started by robots.
Speaker 1: It was robots who are trying to win us over
Speaker 1: before they take over. Very strange, um the the it
Speaker 1: hasn't been around for as long as you think, although
Speaker 1: I think that it came about right around the time
Speaker 1: when the need first arose because I was doing some
Speaker 1: research and it seems like with industrialization and the rise
Speaker 1: of like factory work, that is are a lot of
Speaker 1: the the schism between our traditional society that was usually
Speaker 1: a grarian based and this new modern society we live
Speaker 1: in really began, and around that time is probably when
Speaker 1: you would have started to have found some isolated seniors,
Speaker 1: is like a growing population. Yeah, that makes sense because
Speaker 1: I found it interesting that, uh, and we'll dig into
Speaker 1: the history here, but I found it interesting that it
Speaker 1: seemed to pop up within about a fifteen year period
Speaker 1: in many countries around the world, and not because they
Speaker 1: had heard of it. You know, It's not like they
Speaker 1: read on the internet in nineteen fifty four that hey,
Speaker 1: someone in England is doing this. So it I think
Speaker 1: that has a lot of merit to it, that the
Speaker 1: need was there kind of all at the same time,
Speaker 1: yeah and all. Yeah, and it also kind of underscores
Speaker 1: just how basically human and idea this is. You know, Alright,
Speaker 1: so World War two raging England, being bombed, neighborhood and
Speaker 1: regions being devastated. Uh, it became clear that people, you know,
Speaker 1: like literally just their home or kitchen were destroyed, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't do simple things like cook the meals they're
Speaker 1: used to providing for their family. The Woman's Volunteer Service
Speaker 1: for Civil Defense came around and they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start delivering some some meals, some home cooked
Speaker 1: meals to people that whose houses have been devastated, who
Speaker 1: can't cook for themselves right now. They delivered them at
Speaker 1: first in baby carriages, which is where the that's the wheels,
Speaker 1: that's where it came from. Yeah, that that's what everybody
Speaker 1: around town called it. Um. They called it meals on wheels,
Speaker 1: pretty neat. It was just just the It was not
Speaker 1: capitalized or anything like that. It was just kind of
Speaker 1: like the the slang term what the cool kids called.
Speaker 1: About ten years later or so in Philly, uh in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: woman named Margaret Toy who became the first director of
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels in the United States, she organized something
Speaker 1: called the Platter Angels and just by coincidence, there were
Speaker 1: some British students in Philly doing some social work at
Speaker 1: a community center where Mrs Toy volunteered, and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a lot like what we've got going on
Speaker 1: in England with the Meals on wheels. Ditch that platter
Speaker 1: angles angles angles there thinking of Joseph Angles. Ditch the
Speaker 1: Platter Angels name and call it meals on wheels. And
Speaker 1: I don't think they said ditch that name, but the
Speaker 1: does would be some pushy exchange theory. Uh you know
Speaker 1: those pushy British exchange students. They're the worst state. Surrounded
Speaker 1: poor Mrs Toy and like poked her in the shoulder
Speaker 1: and like blue cigarettes smoke in our face. Hey, platter
Speaker 1: angel right out of her hand. So that's how it
Speaker 1: became meals on Wheels in the United States. And then
Speaker 1: over the next like twenty and thirty years in the
Speaker 1: US they started popping up all over the place. They did.
Speaker 1: And here's what you're kind of referring to earlier. So
Speaker 1: that was that same year in September in Um, South Australia,
Speaker 1: which is where Adelaide is. Shout out to Adelaide where
Speaker 1: the summerton man is from, right, Um, a woman named
Speaker 1: Doris Taylor came up with the same exact thing, and
Speaker 1: from what I understand, called it meals on wheels as well.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah? She was something else man Um.
Speaker 1: She was disabled. The best I can discern is she
Speaker 1: had a fall when she was seven which gave her
Speaker 1: a limp, and then another fall when she was eleven
Speaker 1: that paralyzed her from the waist down permanently. Like that
Speaker 1: was it. That was it. She was wheelchair bound from
Speaker 1: that point on. Yep, from that point on, and despite
Speaker 1: the fact that as an eleven year old in a
Speaker 1: wheelchair for life, she had a big heart and and
Speaker 1: realized that there was a need to provide for people
Speaker 1: in her community, just like was was going on in
Speaker 1: American Britain, and said, hey, what about bringing a meal
Speaker 1: to people? And then in September, like you said, meals
Speaker 1: on wheels of South Australia, Uh, which I had to
Speaker 1: look up on a map. I figured it was in
Speaker 1: the South. Yeah, and in Australia it is. But it's
Speaker 1: a big chunk um, a big chunk of land at least,
Speaker 1: I don't know how populated it is. Well, if Adelaide's there,
Speaker 1: it's great. Well, yeah, of course it is. But that
Speaker 1: has grown. She actually lived long enough to see that
Speaker 1: grow into a huge organization. And um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they have these all over the world and all over
Speaker 1: the country here in America. But we just wanted to
Speaker 1: shout her out specifically for you know, being disabled herself
Speaker 1: and and going on to do like just this amazing thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, And and so you think, like, okay,
Speaker 1: big deal, she's a wheelchair abound and she can she
Speaker 1: can use her arms, she can juggle that kind of stuff. Nope,
Speaker 1: she had rheumatoid arthritis, crippling rheumatoid arthritis on top of
Speaker 1: all of the us and so she was just basically
Speaker 1: she had no use of any of her limbs and
Speaker 1: she still was out there raising like she had. She
Speaker 1: used her mind too to get other people to get
Speaker 1: off their duffs and help people less fortunate she was.
Speaker 1: She was an amazing person. It's pretty great. Five thousand
Speaker 1: clients in South Australia now ninety branches. Uh and this
Speaker 1: is all because of Doris Taylor and then Chuck. So
Speaker 1: speaking of South Australia, you were you were onto something
Speaker 1: huge chunk land, not very populated. Adelaide is the capital
Speaker 1: with just under one and a half million people, and
Speaker 1: that's the population of South Australia as a whole. Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. There's a lot of unused land there.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Oh sure, all right, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, So meals on wheels starts springing up
Speaker 1: as like these community programs all over the world. Right,
Speaker 1: just because there's a few spiritually aligned do gooders out
Speaker 1: there who have this good idea, and it just spreads
Speaker 1: and spreads and spreads. But the thing that they have
Speaker 1: in common, aside from the basic we bring a meal
Speaker 1: once a day to someone who can't get out of
Speaker 1: their house, they also had in common that they were community,
Speaker 1: grassroots organizations. That's how they that's how they operated, that's
Speaker 1: how they were funded. That was it, and that was
Speaker 1: the case until I believe nineteen with the Older Americans Act,
Speaker 1: when the FEDS finally said, all right, okay, a good
Speaker 1: idea is a good idea, we'll cough up some money
Speaker 1: for your Meals on wheels programs. And it's been that
Speaker 1: way ever since. Customarily, the Older Americans Act provides about
Speaker 1: thirty percent of funding for the Meals on Wheels programs
Speaker 1: in America, I should say, and then the rest. It's
Speaker 1: like it's an early public part private partnership, where the
Speaker 1: rest is meant to come from state and local governments,
Speaker 1: private donations, foundations, grants, wherever they can get money from.
Speaker 1: But the the the Meals on Wheels program is meant,
Speaker 1: ever since nineteen sixty five in the US, to have
Speaker 1: been able to rely on over a third of its
Speaker 1: annual budget coming from the US government to provide that
Speaker 1: foundation so they can get the rest. Yeah, so that,
Speaker 1: like you said, is specifically because the O A A
Speaker 1: and delivered through the Office of Health and Human Services
Speaker 1: and got a shout out corporate donations because I feel
Speaker 1: like they, you know, people like to bag on big corporations,
Speaker 1: but um, part of their funding does come from corporations
Speaker 1: chipping in. And then you talked about grants. There are
Speaker 1: three specific uh block grant programs. Uh the Community Development
Speaker 1: Block grant, the Social Services Block grant, and Community Services
Speaker 1: Block Grant. And just put a pin in that because
Speaker 1: that will come up again later. So um, again, the
Speaker 1: most of the funding comes from things other than the
Speaker 1: federal government, right, And and that there's another way that
Speaker 1: these this program is funded and this is kind of
Speaker 1: surprising to me, but it's from the people who are
Speaker 1: the recipients of this aid as well. It is and
Speaker 1: this is actually another Doris Taylor innovation, at least in Australia.
Speaker 1: Before it was well you're this is charity, so here
Speaker 1: just take this, she was like, yes, we're gonna incorporate volunteers,
Speaker 1: and the volunteers don't need to be paid obviously, but
Speaker 1: we still need to pay for the food. We still
Speaker 1: need to pay workers to prepare the meals, and so
Speaker 1: obviously some of that could be donated, but yeah, sure
Speaker 1: not all of it. You just can't rely on that
Speaker 1: always to be donated. You could kind of always rely
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be somebody there who will fill in
Speaker 1: for somebody who didn't show up that day in meal delivery, right,
Speaker 1: or you can go do that yourself. But the more
Speaker 1: skilled stuff, you need to be able to pay somebody
Speaker 1: so that they will show up and do this stuff. Right.
Speaker 1: So the idea of having the people who can afford
Speaker 1: it pay for the meal, UM, that's that is kind
Speaker 1: of innovative and it helps keep the program going. The
Speaker 1: thing is is if you can't pay for the meal
Speaker 1: you get that you get it for free. Well, and
Speaker 1: then there's a that's a continuum. There's a sliding scale
Speaker 1: between I can I can I can afford a little
Speaker 1: bit for this meal, um, here's here's some and then
Speaker 1: I think the people who are able to physically able to,
Speaker 1: but are financially unable to afford a meal UM are
Speaker 1: asked to volunteer to be a part of the Meals
Speaker 1: on Wheels program. Themselves. Yeah, I'm a big You can
Speaker 1: call me an old hippie if you want, but the
Speaker 1: sliding scale is one of my favorite things. An old
Speaker 1: hippies like the sliding scale, sure, man, like everything from
Speaker 1: I mean when I was a young, broke mid twenties
Speaker 1: something and I wanted to go to a shrink, they
Speaker 1: you know, I found a shrink at a sliding scale.
Speaker 1: Like there are people out there to be like, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what can you what can you pay? Right? And it
Speaker 1: wasn't some government program, it was a private uh therapist.
Speaker 1: And this is across the board. There are all sorts
Speaker 1: of people who offer sliding scales, like you know, meals
Speaker 1: of wheels. If you can pay a dollar, then that helps.
Speaker 1: If you can't pay anything, we'll give it to you
Speaker 1: if you can pay full price. I didn't see what
Speaker 1: full price was for a meal on wheel. I saw
Speaker 1: somewhere and this is a just a meals on wheels
Speaker 1: um Like a volunteer who wrote something on Vox said
Speaker 1: that they they are usually about two dollars and five cents.
Speaker 1: That's full price, yeah, man, which is ridiculously low. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: because I guess they're only paying for food costs. And
Speaker 1: they're getting bulk you know, they're getting gallons of mayonnaise
Speaker 1: at the warehouse. Yeah, you know, yeah, but you have
Speaker 1: to order about ten overage for mayonnaise to to cover
Speaker 1: shrinkage because everybody's always got their fingers in the man
Speaker 1: is joke as they're walking in and out of the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know. That's what Pappy used to say, That's what
Speaker 1: Mr Otis always said. He probably did so. Um, so
Speaker 1: there is there is, there's money. There's financial contributions involved.
Speaker 1: But for the most part um the being a part
Speaker 1: of meals on Wheels as a recipient, it's based entirely
Speaker 1: on need. And I think the first thing that they
Speaker 1: look at is your medical need, right, yeah, so how
Speaker 1: how able are you to get around your house? How
Speaker 1: able are you? And this is a this is one
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of, But I'm like, Okay, well you
Speaker 1: can get up and get around your house, you can
Speaker 1: cook for yourself. Can you also go to the grocery store? Huge?
Speaker 1: Huge one. So you may be physically able to, um,
Speaker 1: hang out in your house and you know, maybe play canasta,
Speaker 1: do whatever. But but getting to like, let's say you
Speaker 1: lost your driver's license or you don't have a car
Speaker 1: any longer, or or it's just getting to the grocery
Speaker 1: store and shopping and then getting back is just way
Speaker 1: too much. Um, you would probably qualify to be a
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels recipient, right yeah. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: range of people like they also have uh like centers
Speaker 1: where they feed a lot of people like in a
Speaker 1: cafeteria setting, and they encourage you if you can get out,
Speaker 1: you can still get your your really nutritious. Because I
Speaker 1: don't think we've said that yet, but that goes without
Speaker 1: saying these meals are specifically catered to the needs of
Speaker 1: the elderly, right yeah. I think ever since nineteen two,
Speaker 1: there was like an amendment maybe to the Older Americans
Speaker 1: Act that said, maybe get those those um single cigarettes
Speaker 1: out of that tray that you're bringing to the to
Speaker 1: the older seniors. Let's actually make this like like a
Speaker 1: nutritious meal. Yeah, so you can go to a place
Speaker 1: and eat with a bunch of other people like you
Speaker 1: and have a good conversation if you can get out
Speaker 1: of the house. But the real focus in the core
Speaker 1: of the program are those we call them shut ins
Speaker 1: at our church. I don't know if that's a I
Speaker 1: think homebound is what they normally call them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's probably an antiquated Southern Baptist term, right, But
Speaker 1: we would deliver meals to shut ins through our church.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like Meals on Wheels. And there are plenty
Speaker 1: of other programs that do this, but Meals on Wheels
Speaker 1: is definitely the biggest and broad ut. Yeah, I get
Speaker 1: the impression to that Meals on Wheels is in particularly
Speaker 1: concerned by competition. No, I don't think they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: as fine as long as everybody's getting their their meals. So, um,
Speaker 1: let's say you you are you qualify medically as somebody
Speaker 1: who is a Meals on Wheels recipient. Um, next they
Speaker 1: would look at your finances, what can you for? What
Speaker 1: can't afford? And they're not going to like go through
Speaker 1: and dig dig through your check. They say, hey, give
Speaker 1: me a wallet, right right, let me see what's in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you go to grab it from and they just put
Speaker 1: their palm on your forehead and hold you back right. No,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna do anything like that. They're going to
Speaker 1: just ask you like what can you afford or what
Speaker 1: are you living on a month? How much extra income
Speaker 1: maybe do you have. That's probably going to be the
Speaker 1: extent of it. I get the impression that it's largely
Speaker 1: an honor system kind of thing, right, and then if
Speaker 1: you if if you're like I just can't afford it,
Speaker 1: they'll say okay, great. Um. Depending on where you live,
Speaker 1: you will either be put into the rotation or you'll
Speaker 1: be putting sadly on a waiting list. And if you're
Speaker 1: put on a waiting list, there's you. You might be
Speaker 1: waiting a little while before they can include you. The
Speaker 1: whole reason anybody would put you on a waiting list
Speaker 1: is funding. And we'll talk about funding later on. Um,
Speaker 1: let's stick to the good stuff right now. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the meals that you're getting are or they're delivering, can
Speaker 1: be hot meals, they can be cold meals. They can
Speaker 1: be frozen if that's what you want. If you don't
Speaker 1: want to eat it, right then, uh, they can be
Speaker 1: shelf stable or canned. Um. If you live way out
Speaker 1: in the sticks, you can probably arrange to have like
Speaker 1: a week's worth of meals delivered frozen. They really try
Speaker 1: to work with you because they try to, I mean,
Speaker 1: their goal is to say that there is no community
Speaker 1: in the United States that we cannot serve right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if you like live out in remote Alaska,
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna be like, can we just bring you
Speaker 1: a week's worth of frozen meals? Can we just drop
Speaker 1: an elk off on your front porch and a buck
Speaker 1: knife and a buck knife that's right? And you'll say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. Well, the rural Alaskan, elderly Alaska would say, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just put it with my other nineteen buck knives
Speaker 1: and my other three elk and they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: you got that many elk We're gonna share it with
Speaker 1: the rest of the community. And you'll say, uh, that's
Speaker 1: wealth distribution New socialists. So here's one interesting stat though
Speaker 1: that I saw that um less than five percent there's
Speaker 1: an estimate, but less than five percent of eligible older
Speaker 1: Americans receive meals, and that on average they received less
Speaker 1: than three meals per week. Man, that is that is sad.
Speaker 1: It is sad. And I don't know if that's is
Speaker 1: that because they can't the program can't be robust enough.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a million different factors involved, but I
Speaker 1: would I would be very surprised that the leading factor
Speaker 1: was not funding. Yeah, because there seems to very much
Speaker 1: be a will. There seems to be a pretty great system,
Speaker 1: decades old system in place the through communities throughout the
Speaker 1: uh the country. Um, I would guess that it's just
Speaker 1: having enough money to add another person to the list,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, well that's a sad wait list, I
Speaker 1: would guess. Also, volunteer volunteers are They're probably another fact
Speaker 1: after as well. I was looking into volunteering. Actually after
Speaker 1: doing this research, I was like, man, that's because not
Speaker 1: only do I want to teach, Like having a kid
Speaker 1: really can inspire you to be a better person because
Speaker 1: you start to think, oh, well they're gonna be looking
Speaker 1: to me and what I do. Uh. And it's great
Speaker 1: to donate money to stuff, which is we're good about.
Speaker 1: But volunteerism is a really big thing that I think
Speaker 1: not enough people do and I certainly didn't do enough
Speaker 1: of that. I'm going to try and teach is an
Speaker 1: example going forward, Like man hours person hours is vital
Speaker 1: to every program like this in the world. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: money is one thing, and funding is super important, but
Speaker 1: it goes lockstep with people showing up and saying I
Speaker 1: will help you do this. Yes, yes, that is what
Speaker 1: Well put Chuck Well put man, because yes, donating money
Speaker 1: is great. You could be like, wow, we've got ten
Speaker 1: thousand meals, but they're all just sitting here rotting because
Speaker 1: we don't have anybody to deliver all of them. It
Speaker 1: is very important. Emily did it in high school. Actually,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm totally not surprised. Meals on wheels. Yeah
Speaker 1: she did. She's a candy striper and died meals on
Speaker 1: wheels and um, she said it was tough. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes this is the only human contact these people have
Speaker 1: in a day. Uh, And she said it and she
Speaker 1: really takes stuff on emotionally and it's hard for her.
Speaker 1: And she said as an adult, she said, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would be able to do that, Like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try something else. But she said, all I
Speaker 1: would think about is I need to help that one person.
Speaker 1: I need to like try and help like move them
Speaker 1: into a different house or and then the next person
Speaker 1: and the next person exactly. But she said, it's it's
Speaker 1: tough to Um, you know a lot of these are
Speaker 1: very very sad cases. And if you have in your mind,
Speaker 1: like you know, I just whistle zippity dude on bounce
Speaker 1: around the neighborhoods and drop off meals and have a
Speaker 1: quick chat. I mean it can be that, but it's
Speaker 1: it takes an emotional toll. So like hats off to
Speaker 1: people who are able to do this and put it
Speaker 1: in the right place in their own emotional life, right, right. So,
Speaker 1: so any anyone can be a Meals on Wheels volunteer, right,
Speaker 1: no matter how emotionally invested you are in other humans.
Speaker 1: And the reason why anybody can do this is because
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels. Well, we've we neglected to say there
Speaker 1: is an organization called Meals on Wheels of America and
Speaker 1: they are basically like the the lobbying central umbrella unit
Speaker 1: of all the independent Meals on Wheels programs. There's like
Speaker 1: five thousand of them around the country. Right, So they
Speaker 1: do advocacy, they issue grants, they figure out best practices,
Speaker 1: and one of the things they've said is like here
Speaker 1: is what you as a volunteer should expect. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: you're going to be confronted by people you want to help,
Speaker 1: but all you have to do is like all that's
Speaker 1: expected of you, and you can you can get as
Speaker 1: involved in invested as you want, but all that expected
Speaker 1: of you, and it is enough to to bring a
Speaker 1: meal to this person's house, say hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: Good to see you. You're looking fine today, um, and
Speaker 1: I'll see you tomorrow. You take care of yourself, see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow. That that they've figured out that that is
Speaker 1: enough to keep people from being completely disconnected from society.
Speaker 1: And again, the food that you're bringing them is is
Speaker 1: helping keep keep them alive. I read that something like
Speaker 1: three thousand to five thousand seniors in America die of
Speaker 1: malnutrition every year every year. This is not like a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen statistics, this is this is this year. Um.
Speaker 1: So the actually it was based on two thousand and
Speaker 1: six data. I can't imagine it's gotten too terribly much better.
Speaker 1: But the fact is that if you volunteer just doing
Speaker 1: those those basic things, it's it's enough to have a
Speaker 1: major impact in the life of somebody. Me. Do you
Speaker 1: want to take another break? Yeah, let's all right. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go deliver three meals and we'll be back right
Speaker 1: after this. You know, I'm glad you said that before
Speaker 1: break about this is like what all you have to
Speaker 1: do because I didn't want to scare people off by
Speaker 1: volunteering because of Emily's taking things on emotionally, Like, there
Speaker 1: are people that are will do a great job going
Speaker 1: out there checking in on people and can successfully do that.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, totally. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: like and I'm sure Emily would would tell you that
Speaker 1: there's probably probably recipients out there you're like, good lord,
Speaker 1: that person is a jerk, or this person is sweeter
Speaker 1: than that person, or this person is really easy to
Speaker 1: talk to, Like I'm sure just the experience on both
Speaker 1: sides is different for each interaction as well. For sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was that was worth saying. For sure,
Speaker 1: there's that we should just say though when we were
Speaker 1: talking about what you're expected to do, So there's basically
Speaker 1: three things you are doing just by visiting. And they
Speaker 1: said that they can, um, they can arrange your your
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels volunteer schedule. If you want to volunteer,
Speaker 1: just go look up Meals on Wheels America and they
Speaker 1: will connect you to whoever's got a program going in
Speaker 1: your community. It's easy as pie. Um. They they will
Speaker 1: whatever your schedule allows. That's great, they'll take it. That
Speaker 1: would be fine for them if it's like, call me
Speaker 1: if you need somebody to fill in, or I can
Speaker 1: do this once a week, or I can do this
Speaker 1: once a month, or I can do this five days
Speaker 1: a week. Um. What they typically say is, you don't
Speaker 1: have to um be independently wealthy, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be unemployed. You you can do this on and typically
Speaker 1: if you have an hour and a half for lunch break,
Speaker 1: they they can put you on a meals on Wheels route. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they typically try to fit the meal deliveries into
Speaker 1: that lunch break and it's a mid day delivery. But
Speaker 1: if you're like, man, I can't get away from my job,
Speaker 1: so sorry, I can't help you, They'll say, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, We'll find something for you to do after hours.
Speaker 1: There are there are always plenty of things to do,
Speaker 1: whether it's helping out in the warehouse or if you
Speaker 1: want to volunteer in the kitchen. You can do stuff
Speaker 1: like that too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially I would
Speaker 1: guess if you have like food prep experience, like like
Speaker 1: actual experience, they would probably say, yes, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: is a need for that. Ye. So volunteering is very easy.
Speaker 1: The program is really good. What you're doing again is
Speaker 1: you're showing up with a good meal. U is usually
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere. It's like a third of of UM
Speaker 1: the daily calories of people who are receiving the meal UM.
Speaker 1: And just that alone is worth bringing a meal for,
Speaker 1: even if it's the biggest jerk in the world or
Speaker 1: you're the biggest misanthrope in the world. Just giving them
Speaker 1: this meal can do things like help them recover from
Speaker 1: disease faster, illnesses or conditions faster, UM keep them mentally acute.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of just benefits to having like nutrition
Speaker 1: on a daily basis that you take for granted because
Speaker 1: you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like
Speaker 1: it's nothing. But imagine if you can't make it to
Speaker 1: the story to get peanut butter or jelly, or your
Speaker 1: handshake too bad to to spread the peanut butter the
Speaker 1: jelly to to be able to have that meal. That
Speaker 1: alone does it, right. But then the fact that they
Speaker 1: added in these other two layers, that there's the UM,
Speaker 1: like keeping social isolation at bay what they call UM
Speaker 1: and meals on wheels, just a friendly visit where you're
Speaker 1: to chatting saying Hi, how's the weather. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be a particularly great conversationalist, but just saying to
Speaker 1: say hi basically, and then you know, asking if they
Speaker 1: need anything, looking around, making sure that they haven't fallen
Speaker 1: is a big one. Like just just keeping tabs on
Speaker 1: this person five days a week. Just having people who
Speaker 1: are going to their house that it's going to cut
Speaker 1: down in the amount of time between something happening to
Speaker 1: them like a fall and somebody noticing that they they're
Speaker 1: not answering their door any longer. Yeah, and that's not all.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this, but there are and because there
Speaker 1: are more than five thousand UM Meals on Wheels programs
Speaker 1: in the United States, it really varies per community as
Speaker 1: to what it's like, but they all fall under that banner.
Speaker 1: But in some programs you can get pet food delivered
Speaker 1: for your cat UM. Sometimes they can offer home repair services.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they can UM offer transportation services if you have
Speaker 1: to go the doctor h if there's bad weather coming up,
Speaker 1: you can get emergency meals UM. They're they're just all
Speaker 1: sort of like hospital discharge pro rams UH to reduce
Speaker 1: readmissions there. Sometimes they have gardens that they grow their own,
Speaker 1: like the Meals on Wheels garden will grow vegetables, um right,
Speaker 1: that they can. You know, it's like a farm to
Speaker 1: table meal delivered to your own right exactly. You're like,
Speaker 1: I've had better buck choy, but thank you. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, man. I mean it's hard to uh, there's
Speaker 1: so many great organizations in the world that help people,
Speaker 1: but Meals on Wheels is like they're really up there.
Speaker 1: I agree wholeheartedly. So um there, if you talk to
Speaker 1: anybody in Meals on Wheels or anybody that has anything
Speaker 1: to do with aging, they will they will. You'll find
Speaker 1: that they're like biting their nails and looking around nervously
Speaker 1: while they're talking to you. And the reason why is
Speaker 1: because remember the baby boom that happened after World War Two,
Speaker 1: and then we did and they turned into hippies, and
Speaker 1: then they turned into stockbrokers, and then they turned into
Speaker 1: um kind of oren again hippies a little bit after
Speaker 1: they made their millions. Well now they're just they're they're
Speaker 1: they're the biggest population in the country and there um
Speaker 1: aging and they're aging fairly fast. And we are not
Speaker 1: set up at this moment to handle what's being called
Speaker 1: the silver tsunami, this massive influx of aging people into
Speaker 1: our economy, into our social structures, into UM needing social services,
Speaker 1: needing healthcare were we might be set up for it, maybe,
Speaker 1: but we're certainly not funding it correctly. And one of
Speaker 1: the programs that is really poised to take a big
Speaker 1: hit is Meals on Wheels. Yeah, so are we gonna
Speaker 1: go with the funding talk here? I think so. Uh.
Speaker 1: March of two thousand seventeen, there or a bunch of
Speaker 1: big headlines made when UM the President's budget chief Mick
Speaker 1: mulvaney said, you know, they released what's called their skinny budget,
Speaker 1: which is basically where everybody can look and see in
Speaker 1: a broad sense of what's being funded, what's being cut
Speaker 1: as far as their budget goes. And Meals on Wheels
Speaker 1: was was one of the things mentioned, and mcmulvaney said
Speaker 1: that it's a program is one of many that is
Speaker 1: just not showing any results. What was his quote, which
Speaker 1: is I think they call that foot in mouth disease
Speaker 1: because that was a really dumb thing to say, Well,
Speaker 1: because yeah, what I want to know is what where
Speaker 1: is he getting that? Like what does that mean? Because
Speaker 1: there are there have been plenty of legit peer reviewed
Speaker 1: studies that that show that meals on wheels is a
Speaker 1: very effective program, right because like just almost immediately people
Speaker 1: started like tweeting and reporting on studies that show that, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that actually really good results from meals on wheels
Speaker 1: In addition to just keeping people alive, it's um it
Speaker 1: actually is shown to like improve their lifespan, to improve
Speaker 1: their nutritional health, to um reduce social isolation. And the
Speaker 1: point of it. The biggest result too, is there's this
Speaker 1: big push and there has been for a couple of
Speaker 1: decades now to to get what are called low care
Speaker 1: UM Medicaid recipients out of assisted living for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. One their low care meaning they can care
Speaker 1: for themselves. They just have been moved into a home
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it. That's not a
Speaker 1: nursing home yet. Assisted living is just basically like you're
Speaker 1: you're at like a senior living facility, but it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily you're not necessarily receiving nursing care. Right. UM, those
Speaker 1: people who are low care UH senior citizens, they can
Speaker 1: live on their own, and if they live on their own,
Speaker 1: they cost a lot less to society. Then if they
Speaker 1: were in these assistant care facilities. Now, if you're going
Speaker 1: to encourage people to live independently, what's called aging in place,
Speaker 1: which means you stay in your home as you age,
Speaker 1: you they have to have a lifeline of connection to
Speaker 1: the rest of society. And there's a number of different
Speaker 1: programs that the Older Americans Act addresses this through, but
Speaker 1: one of them is Meals on Wheels. So if you're
Speaker 1: gonna have it one way, you've gotta have the other
Speaker 1: thing too, is the point. Yeah, there's a few um
Speaker 1: stats here. Here's one the average cost of a one
Speaker 1: month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home delivered
Speaker 1: meals five days a week for seven years uh. And
Speaker 1: another one UH. Two thousand thirteen study from Brown University
Speaker 1: said that in most states, increasing Meals on Wheels enrollment
Speaker 1: would result in a net savings from decreased Medicaid costs
Speaker 1: from nursing home care. And then they found just literally
Speaker 1: as far as the health goes uh. They did through
Speaker 1: the a ARP they did a study that said that
Speaker 1: there were statistically significant differences and health benefits among the
Speaker 1: three growth groups of people UM, people who got meal deliveries,
Speaker 1: people who didn't and people who were on waiting list
Speaker 1: was that the yep, exactly and basically the people who
Speaker 1: had face to face visits, they had the highest gains.
Speaker 1: So there is something to this. Another human being touching
Speaker 1: you physically and handing you a meal. Uh and it's
Speaker 1: touching you physically in an appropriate manner. Yeah. Uh So
Speaker 1: I did some digging on this this funding because it's
Speaker 1: really hard to to go through the web of numbers
Speaker 1: on how what a budget cut means. Um So, what
Speaker 1: this budget cut is proposed as right off the bat,
Speaker 1: cutting three million dollars from the o A A where
Speaker 1: the of the actual federal funding comes from, right, which
Speaker 1: is a problem because they need an increase from what
Speaker 1: I saw of twelve percent a year, not a decrease
Speaker 1: of any kind. Yeah, we should point that out. This
Speaker 1: is an organization that already was hurting, right and and
Speaker 1: with the silver tsunami coming down the pike, if the
Speaker 1: people who are going to continue to need the expanded
Speaker 1: version of meals on wheels, you you need more funding
Speaker 1: and apparently twelve percent increase of years what they're asking for. Right.
Speaker 1: So remember earlier I said put a pin in those
Speaker 1: three block grants the c d b G, s s
Speaker 1: b G, and the c s b G. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Trump budget completely eliminates all three of those, not just
Speaker 1: the money, but like there are no more block grants,
Speaker 1: those three gone, right, And there I have to say
Speaker 1: there was some pretty poor reporting around that mc mulvaney
Speaker 1: press conference because he was largely talking about cutting block grants,
Speaker 1: which is three billion dollars from the federal government. He
Speaker 1: he just decided to use meals on wheels as a
Speaker 1: a poster child for the block grants that don't get
Speaker 1: results because state, state, and local governments use block grants
Speaker 1: to a kind of stuff, all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they customarily using force to
Speaker 1: additionally fund local meals on wheels programs. Right, but that
Speaker 1: was just the absolute worst program he could have picked,
Speaker 1: because not only is it like no, it's as they
Speaker 1: actually do bring meals to people and keep them alive.
Speaker 1: That's the result, number one. But then the fact that
Speaker 1: there's all these peer reviewed studies that show like, even
Speaker 1: beyond that basis or that basic, that basic need that's
Speaker 1: being met, it's better than that. That was just a
Speaker 1: terrible one to pick on. And so trying to find
Speaker 1: out the actual money is is really hard because the
Speaker 1: way it's parched out, like you said, with these plot
Speaker 1: grants going in all different directions. But they finally got
Speaker 1: an estimate, they think from a senior Office of Management
Speaker 1: and Budget official that it looks like it would be
Speaker 1: about forty eight million dollars from that's forty five million
Speaker 1: from the block grants and three million dollars from the
Speaker 1: oh A A. It's about forty eight million bucks, is
Speaker 1: their best guess of what meals on wheels would be
Speaker 1: reduced annually when they needed more money to begin with,
Speaker 1: and it's about a one point four billion dollar annual operations.
Speaker 1: So you can say it's only a three percent cut
Speaker 1: in federal funding or an overall funding, but a three
Speaker 1: percent cut when people are on waiting list and they
Speaker 1: needed three I mean, I'm not gonna say a three
Speaker 1: percent increase. Probably needed more than that twelve a year. Oh,
Speaker 1: they needed twelve a year and they're getting a three
Speaker 1: percent shortfall cut right. Um. And again when you're talking
Speaker 1: about like figuring out where to put your money, like
Speaker 1: I've got another one for you ready for this? You
Speaker 1: kind of touched on it. But that so the annual
Speaker 1: meal cost according to Meals on Wheels America, the main
Speaker 1: the main group that kind of oversees all the independent groups,
Speaker 1: it's about sixty five dollars for the year. For the year. Okay,
Speaker 1: The cost of one day in the hospital, according to
Speaker 1: Mathematica Policy Research is no. I'm sorry that Henry J.
Speaker 1: Kaiser Family Foundation is seventy for one day in the hospital. Right,
Speaker 1: So the idea um that that this isn't cost effective
Speaker 1: is is pretty wrong. And then the other aspect of it,
Speaker 1: like the fact that this is that like being able
Speaker 1: to stay in your home and age in your home
Speaker 1: apparently extends lifespans quite dramatically. I saw one that said
Speaker 1: that healthy, active, seventy eight year old person living independently
Speaker 1: has a life expectancy of an additional fifteen or more years,
Speaker 1: So ninety three. That's not bad, right, But that when
Speaker 1: they enter a long term care facility that life expectancy
Speaker 1: decreases automatically by fifty according to this one study. So
Speaker 1: there's there's a really big um. There's good reason to
Speaker 1: to let people stay in their homes or help them
Speaker 1: stay in their homes. There's a couple of them. Uh,
Speaker 1: if they want to of course, if they want to
Speaker 1: go live somewhere because there's more um socializing or or
Speaker 1: better food, or who knows, if you want to go
Speaker 1: live in a a secure facility, I say, yes, do that.
Speaker 1: I think there should be plenty of choice, plenty of
Speaker 1: individual choice, depending on the circumstances and the needs and
Speaker 1: the desires of the individual um for our aging population,
Speaker 1: no matter whether they're baby boomers or generation ex eventually whoever.
Speaker 1: I think, once you reach a certain point in your life,
Speaker 1: you've contributed enough and you deserve to be taken care
Speaker 1: of by the rest of us. Agreed. That's that's my
Speaker 1: two cents. Yeah, man, do you got anything else? Uh No,
Speaker 1: It's just so sad that as you age you should
Speaker 1: be able to like have a dignified existence. Still, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and not everyone has kids who make enough
Speaker 1: money to take care of you or to put you
Speaker 1: in the most expensive, really great quality nursing home. Um,
Speaker 1: or you might just have terrible kids. That's a good point,
Speaker 1: you know anyway. Yeah, that's all I have to say. So,
Speaker 1: we we were told that meals on Wheels has like
Speaker 1: this big um push going on right now, um, which
Speaker 1: we were like, well, well, we'll release an episode about that.
Speaker 1: And because it's good. So they have something called America.
Speaker 1: Let's do lunch dot org. I think it's like a
Speaker 1: volunteer campaign drive um, and you can also donate to
Speaker 1: you can do both. You can do one, you can
Speaker 1: do the other. Who knows, but do something? How about that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean just go to Meals on Wheels America on
Speaker 1: the web or America let's do lunch dot org. For sure.
Speaker 1: There you go and be human? Huh if you uh?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, Chuck, we haven't gotten there yet. Since
Speaker 1: I said be be human, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: You know what, let's skip listener mail this week, and
Speaker 1: let's say use that extra ninety seconds to go to
Speaker 1: your laptop and just do a little investigating on meals
Speaker 1: on wheels. Okay, we'll wait, all right. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with this, especially, let us know
Speaker 1: about a cool, interesting or crazy meals on we experience.
Speaker 1: We would love that. You can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: josh um Clark or s Y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant or slash stuff you should know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you can catch up with Chuck too on Twitter at
Speaker 1: movie Crush. You can send us all an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com