CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Meals on Wheels lunch plates, top left, are prepared at the Lunalilo Homes kitchen. The day's meal featured pork steaks with mushroom sauce, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes, fresh green salad, milk or juice, bread, papaya and gelatin. Top right, cook Ray Lau prepared to seal the hot meals prior to delivery. Above left, volunteer Irene Ida gathered meals for delivery from her car.
Meals on Wheels marks
25 years of food service to
the elderly and homebound
In a time when a hot meal can mean anything from microwaved TV dinners to a bowl of instant ramen, it's not surprising that a "real" meal is something worth appreciating.
Providing at least one "real" meal a day is the driving force that has pushed the private, non-profit organization, Hawaii Meals on Wheels, through 25 years of service to the elderly and homebound.
Ask anyone who has gone without a hot, nutritious meal for any length of time, and they'll tell you that it has a lasting effect on the mind as well as the body. It's a reality that Ray Lau knows all too well, since taking on the job of cooking for the elderly about a year ago.
Lau, a cook at the Lunalilo Home in Hawaii Kai, a care-home facility established in 1881 to care for native Hawaiian elderly, maps out his meals for the day every day. He's responsible for feeding 37 residents at the home in addition to preparing seven to 12 packaged meals that are delivered to homebound residents on the Meals on Wheels program in the Hawaii Kai district. It's a far cry from his days in the military where he served in the Army as a hospital food service specialist, but that experience prepared him well for his current task.
"The job is challenging and you need to be flexible," Lau says.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Her husband, Mel, dropped off a meal at Betty Cremer's house. Mel and Irene Ida have been volunteers for the Meals on Wheels program for 12 years.
Constantly stirring and mixing ingredients, even doling out a quick sample of the day's entrée, Lau seems in his element as he dodges back and forth in the kitchen. It's obvious he relishes feeding people.
His meals have a home-cooked feel and taste, which is key to serving the elderly. "They have so many restrictions -- no this, no that," says Lau, so it's important that the food be satisfying and tasty. The meals aren't prepared ahead of time and reheated, or frozen. It's freshly prepared as like at home, only Lau does it on a slightly larger scale.
HAWAII MEALS on Wheels started with six clients in need, and 25 years later it is serving nearly 500 clients. Deliveries concentrate on lunch with a couple of dinner routes. Meals are delivered Mondays to Fridays, including all weekday holidays. A single meal costs Hawaii Meals on Wheels about $4.
Customers are asked to contribute whatever they can, and the remaining costs are subsidized by Hawaii Meals on Wheels through various donations and support.
By 10 a.m. on a typical day, Lau has most of the day's lunch prepared and warming on the stove or in the oven. On this particular day, the menu is pork steak with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. The day before it was beef stew, and in the following days it will be meatloaf and gravy and baked mahimahi with tartar sauce. The food is hearty, comforting and easy to eat, but also nutritionally balanced. He also prepares a separate single serving of pork cutlet with brown gravy for a homebound resident who can't have dairy products.
Trying to balance all the dietary requirements is no easy task. That responsibility falls in the hands of dietary manager Leticia Manning, who oversees the menu selection and needs of the clientele. "We're always developing menus, considering client suggestions, ethnic backgrounds, likes and dislikes," Manning says.
Menus are carefully organized according to the U.S. recommended dietary allowance and food guide pyramid, and new recipes are taste-tested and approved before being added to the rotation.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Meals on Wheels volunteers Mel and Irene Ida bustled in the Lunalilo Homes kitchen while getting ready to deliver the hot meals.
A quick glance at the menus for a four-month period reveal two things: No main dish is repeated during the period, and attention is given to include ethnic entrées like pork tofu, pork guisantes and laulau and lomi salmon. Manning says customers are always encouraged to give feedback; substitutions are accommodated whenever possible.
In addition to the hot entrée, the meal includes a salad which may be tossed greens or a three-bean salad, fruit or a dessert item, ranging from half of a papaya and canned mixed fruit to a cookie or pudding, and a drink of milk or fruit juice.
Serving sizes are substantial, generally including about 3 ounces or more of protein.
"I know for many of these people, this meal may be the only hot meal they will get for the day," Manning says. If they can't finish the meal in one sitting, he says they can save it for another time.
Fat, sugar and sodium are problem areas for the elderly, Manning says. Although these areas are closely monitored by Manning, exceptions are made for special occasions, like when a donation of gourmet chocolate chip cookies was made by the Doubletree Alana Hotel. Holidays are always taken into consideration, so clients can look forward to fresh corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, and turkey and all the trimmings on Thanksgiving.
These are important ways for keeping the appetite stimulated and having food remain an enjoyable experience, Manning believes.
AT AROUND 10:15 a.m. Lau starts to package the lunch meal in convenient aluminum serving containers. The same routine occurs at five other clinical kitchens around the island that prepare meals for routes that cover Kalihi to Hawaii Kai, Kaneohe to Kailua and the Pearl City/Aiea area. By 10:30 a.m. all the meals are sealed and ready to go.
The next chain of command lies in the hands of about 300 volunteer deliverers like retired Col. Mel Ida and his wife, Irene, who arrive donning Meals on Wheels logo shirts, shorts and athletic shoes. They check for messages from the Meals on Wheels office, then stop for a quick sampling of the pork and gravy laid out by Lau before loading up the lunches in coolers. "The food is really good," Col. Ida says approvingly.
Although the volunteers don't have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy the meal they deliver with clients, a friendly face and a quick exchange of words reassures them that the delivery is much appreciated. Ninety-five year old Charles Fraticelli and his wife, 90-year-old Lucy, have spent a lifetime watching their diet and eating healthy.
"I like all the vegetables in the meals," Lucy Fraticelli says.
The Idas believe that the Fraticellis' longevity sets a good example of the result of a healthy diet.
"That's what makes all of this worth it," Irene Ida says.
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For information on becoming a Hawaii Meals on Wheels client or volunteer, call 988-6747.
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