Meals On Wheels: The Benefits Of Volunteering

Volunteering is one activity that can positively affect everyone involved. When an employer or college is looking at an applicant’s resume, volunteering experience is a beneficial item to add, especially if it is in a related field. Some people love to help out the community by volunteering. Many different volunteer programs are appealing to different people, like helping take care of dogs and cats at the animal shelter for animal lovers, caring for a child at a children’s hospital if they are affectionate towards children, or cooking a meal at a food kitchen for a person wanting to be a chef or someone inspired to help the needy. I am called to a different group to volunteer with: the elderly. Each organization helps the elderly in different
ways, but my favorite cause is that of Meals on Wheels. Of all the organizations there are to volunteer for, especially to help the elderly, I would benefit and enjoy volunteering with Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is a national organization that provides hot meals to senior citizens that are unable to cook for themselves.
According to the Meals on Wheels website, one in six senior citizens in America wrestles with hunger (“Meals on Wheels America”). The majority of the time, these seniors cannot drive themselves or do not have someone that can shop and cook for them. Since they cannot go anywhere and interact with people, many seniors begin to feel lonely in addition to being hungry. To combat this problem, Meals on Wheels sends volunteers out to bring seniors a nutritious meal, even catering to special diets, and allows them to have interaction with other people. These volunteers are sometimes the only thing a senior looks forward to on any given day. This interaction helps seniors feel less lonely and solves two major problems at once. (“Meals on Wheels America”). I am passionate about assisting the elderly as much as I can, so this organization is a perfect fit for me and my interests. I have been around the elderly for much of my life, and all of the seniors I met have greatly impacted my life. By volunteering with Meals on Wheels, I can continue to give back to my community and the people that have had such a massive impact on my
life. I am asked to meet only a few requirements to become a volunteer for Meals on Wheels. The main requirement that I must meet is I have to be at least 18, so I would have to wait until May to volunteer. While volunteering, I would have a schedule, which is usually two and a half hours a day, one day a week. I would also have a specific route and see the same eight to ten seniors a week, and I would drive it in my own car. Not only must I provide my own car and gas, I also need to be in adequate physical shape. The volunteer job might require me to pack food, lift coolers, and maybe even carry bags of pet food and cat litter for seniors with pets, so I must be able to lift at least 20-50 pounds and carry it (“Meals on Wheels”). At home, I lift and carry our dog food from the car to the house, so this is not a deal breaker for me. Unlike many other volunteer jobs with other organizations, this is not too much to ask. Many organizations ask for physical labor, which can be very taxing on the body and is not an activity I want to participate in. I would not enjoy something as much if the organization required heavy manual labor. Meals on Wheels does not require much physical activity, unless I wanted to work in the kitchen. This makes volunteering for this organization even more appealing for me. Though I would not receive any monetary value from volunteering, I would gain so much more from volunteering at Meals on Wheels. Since Christmas of 2015, my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital and was homebound for around a month. When she was not at home or in the hospital, she stayed in two nursing homes for rehab. While visiting her at the homes and the hospital, I have come into contact with many senior citizens. I meet many interesting people while visiting, and they have had a huge impact on my everyday life. Some people might see this as boring, but seniors can captivate people with their stories and the advice they give. While volunteering at Meals on Wheels, I can get the same feeling of interacting with, learning from, and becoming friends with the seniors. Not only would I meet and become friends with many interesting people, it might even help in the future with my career. I have thought seriously about entering the medical field since I have been to the hospital and to different nursing homes multiple times in the past year, and this organization can give me many valuable skills that can propel me towards greatness in this field. This volunteering job can teach me valuable people skills that are needed to be a doctor and that aid their interaction with patients, especially the elderly since they have a tendency to be more difficult to work with because of their feeble memory and physical state. Through volunteering for this program, I can learn more about interacting with the elderly, and that can give me the perfect boost I will need in the medical field. Giving back is something I have always cared about, and volunteering is the perfect way to do just that. There are many organizations I could help with, but this organization is a perfect fit for me because of what they do and what I can learn. Through Meals on Wheels, I am not only giving back to the community, but I am also helping myself. I hope to continuously volunteer and maybe even bring my friends, and eventually children, to experience this joy with me. Though this job may be difficult for many since they are not interested whatsoever in helping the elderly and believe the elderly are boring, the time and effort that I put in is worth it for me and for what my future may hold.