Episode 14: Meals on Wheels San Francisco

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guest: Jim Oswald, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Meals on Wheels, San Francisco

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of our series exploring COVID-19’s impact on nonprofits and small businesses in San Francisco. We started the series back in April 2020 during the height of the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Shelter In Place requirements. Over these past nine months the Covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown has wiped out millions of jobs in both the nonprofit and small business sectors as well as shuttered tens of thousands of small business operations.

The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits, small businesses and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community. Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the global pandemic and economic depression.

Show Guest Jim: One of the keys to our program besides delivering nourishment to our home bound clients is actually getting an eyes on them to see how they're doing and talking with them well, in Pandemic world that's kind of hard to do, but for their safety, many of these clients have underlying medical conditions that make them really vulnerable to a disease like COVID-19

Episode Intro - Show Host George: In this episode our featured voice is Jim Oswald, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Meals on Wheels, San Francisco. Over their 50 years of operations in San Francisco Meals on Wheels is the only organization to provide home bound seniors two home-delivered meals a day 7 days a week. In addition to providing meals, the Meals on Wheels San Francisco team provides our fellow senior community members with wrap around support services such as Nutrition Counseling, Well-being and Safety Checks, Social Work and Case Management as well as coordinating minor home repairs and volunteer based grocery shopping along with social phone calls to check in with home bound seniors

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Jim Oswald, the director of marketing and communications for Meals on Wheels, San Francisco and Jim. Thanks for being here today.

Show Guest Jim: Thanks for having me, George.

Show Host George: I'd like to start off with you sharing with the audience, you know what the average age group is that the meals on wheels serves and then also, beyond just meals that you provide, to a lot of our senior citizens, what are all the wrap around services do you provide?

Show Guest Jim: Sure. Well, you know, kind of just stepping back, ah meals on wheels here in San Francisco is celebrating 50 years of serving the community. So, it's an incredible year as we all can attest to. And in many ways, but it's 50 years of serving, older adults and adults with disabilities living here in San Francisco County.

Our average age, ultimately for folks on our program is right around 65, but really 60 plus, we have clients who are 103 and everything in between. So, you know, the mission ultimately, while it's based in food, our goal is to help older adults living in San Francisco, live independently and safely in their homes.

And we do that certainly through, providing nourishment through our home delivered meals, but also through wellness and safety checks. So, when our drivers, deliver a meal to an older San Franciscan, they also get their eyes on that individual and, chat with them and they can kinda see, firsthand what may be happening or maybe if a person's you know is struggling a little bit. So, we offer social work services, where our social workers, every, ah meals on wheels client is actually ah partnered or paired with one of our social workers. And we really kind of dig into to see what we can do to help them live safely in their homes, whether it be at home or an apartment that they're renting, or even a single residency occupancy room. So, that is basically the core mission of that. Ultimately, we're fortunate that we're able to provide these meals, some 2.2 million last year alone to about 4,300 individuals living in San Francisco.

George: And then also part of what you do, Jim is there's you work with the food bank to also provide the delivery to seniors, which, you know, is a super important, component given that so many of the seniors now are completely sequestered because of COVID-19.

Jim: Yeah. You know, we want to meet individuals where they are in the trajectory, right? So, we do have many, ah older adult clients who, you know, they just need a little assistance. They can still get out, they have mobility, but maybe they need, and they can still cook for themselves, but maybe they need a little assistance getting groceries So through our partnership with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank, we deliver right around, you know, about 500 bags of groceries per week. It's a volunteer run program right here at our Bayview headquarters. Uh, and this really helps those individuals, but also, it's a way for us to develop a relationship with those individuals.

Because over time, as people age in place in their homes, they may need, more advanced services such as our home delivered meals program.

George: And so, Jim how has COVID-19, really impacted and Meals on Wheels ability to serve your seniors and operate? And of course, I'm imagining that the need has really also exploded. 

Jim: Yeah. Well, you know COVID in itself has presented all kinds of, challenges for everyone, right? for us, the biggest priority was safety, safety of our staff, safety of our volunteers and safety of, our older adult clients. So, you know, from the first week of March we, went into emergency mode.

So that meant, enacting even more strict protocols, we already do laugh, kind of a, you know, a little stepping back here. We're a safety net organization, even prior to COVID-19. So, for us, we're kind of set to handle emergency crisis. However, this was a huge crisis. So, our goal was to make sure that our staff are healthy and safe. That meant, certainly all of the protocols of sanitizing and PPE and really social distancing. We've had to multiply our kitchen areas ah across various buildings throughout the city, just so that we can accommodate social distancing needs. We enacted, no contact deliveries with our drivers.

As I mentioned earlier, you know, one of the keys to our program besides delivering nourishment to our homebound clients is actually getting an eyes on them to see how they're doing and talking with them well, in, Pandemic World that's kind of hard to do, ah for their safety, many of these clients have underlying medical conditions ah that make them really vulnerable to a disease like COVID-19.

So, no contact deliveries, you know, talking with clients from a very far away and even more importantly, enacting our social work division, to actually make regular calls to individuals just to see how they're doing. So those are the big challenges. And of course, for us, you know, we rely on the generosity of individuals for donations and our biggest fundraiser of the year, had to be postponed and actually canceled later on. That's a fundraiser that basically is responsible for about 52% of the funding for our meals. So, it's a huge chunk. It's about $3 million. So, you know, we've been really fortunate that the community has been so supportive of us, both philanthropically, but also in donating in kind services, ah PPE all of those things. But, right now, you know, we're looking for, you know, continued generosity.

George: To that point, Jim, aaah wonderful picture behind you of your new kitchen that you're working on, please talk a little bit about that, but people who are viewing this or listening to this, you know, how can they help, whether it's volunteer, if they don't have money to donate, but have time or resources, how can people get engaged in supporting Meals on Wheels?  

Jim: Yeah. Well, you know, as you see behind me, this is, the brand new, Meals on Wheels, kitchen and food production facility. So, no matter what was happening throughout the year, and there's a lot happening, right? laughter that we all were living through. But we continued our mission of making sure that not a single, older adult client, missed a meal, during the pandemic. Aaah matter of fact, our base increased by 246% of new clients requesting services from us. So, it's been a very busy time, but throughout all of that, we were able to continue construction of our new facility and it is ready to open in a matter of weeks. We expect by November to actually be producing the first meals out of this kitchen.

Just to kind of put a little base to it, we pre-COVID would produce about 8,000 meals a day. During the pandemic, we had to increase that to about 10,000 plus meals a day, which was really putting a strain on the kitchen, our current facility. The facility you see behind me will have the capacity for us to be able to produce 20,000 plus meals a day.

So, and it's surely needed because at the end of the day, we're, seeing an increase, uh certainly around the country, but particularly in San Francisco of our older adult population and the projections show that basically ah will you need to produce 50 million meals within the next two decades. That's about 2.5 million meals a year.

So, the increase is there that the need is great. And we're just thrilled to be able to open this facility and, you know, provide services for another 50 years hopefully or longer.

George: So, Jim, in all of your work with, seniors and Meals on Wheels, could you share with the audience, perhaps one of your favorite stories that you've, gathered over the years?  

Jim: Oh, there's just so many. I was just on the phone with one of clients. she, uh, has the ability to do zoom. You know zoom is the new thing this year here it seems right, laughter for all of us. And she tells me, you know, about having the go out really early in the morning to get her walk in as part of her physical therapy, so that she could avoid crowds of people.

Because she's afraid of potentially running into someone who might have tested positive for the disease. I have to say, you know, our goal ultimately is to keep our clients safe, but I hear many stories from our drivers who have really developed relationships over the years, with our clients. And one in particular, it was right around April, ah a regular client that our driver Jim, with the same name as me.

He delivered some meals one day and in front of the door again, we're doing no contact deliveries, but in front of that door to that home was a little package for him address to him. He opened up the package and inside were two homemade face masks for him. And with a little note from the older adults yeah, it's a couple that live together as a husband and wife who are on our program and they just wanted to make sure they thank them for everything and for coming out during a really challenging time. And they wanted to make sure he was safe. And I just thought that these individuals, you know, have their own health issues. The one lady has arthritis, but yet she made these masks by hand. She was concerned about his wellbeing. So, I think there are a lot of positive things that come out of a crisis. And certainly, it's caring for one another is one of them.

George: Well, to that kind of point Jim, one of my final questions and I've been asking everybody in the series is, what do you see are some of the positives that can come out of the COVID-19 pandemic and it's kind of virtual meltdown of all of our social services and especially impacting, the elderly?  

Jim: Yeah. You know, the coronavirus does not discriminate, but yet in some ways it does. So, we could see firsthand through our clients, many of whom live on less than a thousand dollars a month. You know a good portion of our clients are people of color and those were the individuals, that sometimes they don't have the resources to be able to protect themselves. So, the pandemic really hit that community hard and in San Francisco, particularly the Latin X community. So, I say, you know, some of the more positive things that come out of that is awareness ultimately.

And for many of us essential businesses and safety net organizations, you know, we figured out how to pivot ultimately so that we can continue the mission. And I think that's really, really important. So, we've learned a lot during this and at the same time we've grown. So, it's, it's been, an incredible, and unfortunately, you know, you know, I think COVID-19 is going to be in our lexicon for another year easily. So, we're doing everything now, planning, you know, far out in advance to see how we best can serve our community. We're so grateful that this new kitchen is coming on board. It could not come any earlier. We wished it was already on-board last year, [laughter laughter] just because of the pandemic, but, it's been incredible.

George: Jim, thank you so much for sharing all of your Meals on Wheels work today. We'll make sure that all the viewers and listeners have, your website, and information on how to participate as far as volunteer for Meals on Wheels, and please stay safe out there and, give my best to the whole crew of volunteers that help make this work happen.  

Jim: And if I could add, because I probably didn't answer that one question, you know, how folks can get involved? Well, we have two big events coming up. We have our October 11th fundraiser, it's alive virtual event. you can join online and you can find that information out at mowsf dot org. And on November 19th, we are doing a live virtual dedication and celebration of the new kitchen right behind me. So, folks, we really invite them to come yeah, join us in this wonderful celebration. So, those are some great things that you can do right from your living room.  

George: Thank you, Jim, stay safe out there and appreciate all that you guys do to help our wonderful, population of folks who are still hanging in there still hunkered down and, trying to make it you know work every day.

Jim Oswald: Thank you, George so much.

Episode Outro - Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voice of Jim Oswald, the director of marketing and communications for Meals on Wheels, San Francisco. Seniors have had the highest death rates of the Covid 19 pandemic. Meals on Wheels San Francisco provides an essential service of supporting our fellow senior community members to safely shelter in place and help to reduce loneliness and isolation which we are all feeling these days. To find out more about how you can help support our seniors go to mowsf dot org.  We mentioned Meals on Wheels, San Francisco’s partnership with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. You can find out more about the San Francisco Marin Food Bank by listening to Episode Two of our series.         

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view and personal stories from the voices of change makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series. To  find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses and staff members, featured in this series please go to my web site george koster dot com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada, along with Mel, Michael and Lila at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to george koster dot com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. Please subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us with feedback and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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