 Whenever there would be any really catastrophe that was in the movies or on the air, she would say, always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers. Welcome to Values. I'm Shaquille DeLal. This week in response to the coronavirus we're interviewing helpers, people who are doing their best to continue to serve the community through this really trying time. I'm here today with Katie Weiser and her daughter, Samaria. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Samaria, how are you doing today? Have you been spending a lot of time with your mom lately? Yeah. Yeah, we have two dogs. Right. One is being told that like when stuff is not allowed in the house. Right. You're trying to entertain yourself with the two dogs at home right now? Yeah. While mommy's working? Yeah. Have you been going to work with your mom too? Yes, you've been swinging a lot while mommy's been working. Is that at the playground next to the senior center? No, actually. So I work from home as much as possible in an effort to social distance and keep my co-workers safe, especially our kitchen staff right now. But we do have a swing set in our backyard where she has been spending a lot of time swinging while I get some work done. Well, Samaria, thank you very much for being here too. We really appreciate you helping your mom out. Can you say you're welcome? You're welcome. Katie, can you tell me a little bit about your organization? Sure. So at Longmont Meals on Wheels we serve older people and people with disability who struggle to stand long enough to cook a meal for themselves or are confused by the dietary restrictions that their doctors placed on and can't either, can't leave the house regularly to get their own groceries or just can't stand long enough to cook anyway and wouldn't be able to do anything with fresh groceries, even if it was delivered to their home. Last year we served over a thousand people in their homes and we served over 110,000 meals, which makes us the third largest Meals on Wheels program in the state after the two Denver programs. How many people do you serve and on how often? So any typical day we are serving about 500 meals a day. Hi, let's try that one again. On any typical day we're serving about 475 to about 550 meals a day. Some of those are duplicates for people who also get frozen meals for the evenings or weekends, but typically we have about 450 clients every day who are getting meals in their homes. How many staff does Longmont Meals on Wheels have? We are a staff of nine and an additional person for as needed special projects, but right now because of social distance things she's staying home. And what exactly are the services that you provide to people? So we are unique because we're the only meal provider to older people in their homes in Longmont who are serving ready-made meals. So the meals that we're delivering to seniors homes are ready for them to eat right now or pop in the refrigerator or freezer and warm up in the microwave to eat later. We're also a daily check, a daily wellness check for the hidden hungry in Longmont. We often call older people who are homebound and struggle with regular access to meals, the hidden hungry. Although right now obviously that definition of hidden hungry is going to expand because normally when adults are hungry, adults my age are hungry or children are hungry, they're still getting out into the community. But seniors even during regular times struggle to get out into the community regularly and now more so than ever of course they shouldn't be getting out into the community. How has the coronavirus changed what you do? So usually we also serve a community lunch at the Longmont Senior Center for older people who are still able-bodied and can leave their house regularly, which just need help with a daily lunch. That meal has been canceled. And so now those folks, what you doing? Now those folks can get the meal delivered in their homes. We also have a very large volunteer force and normally they come into the senior center and they gather and they they commune with each other and they pack their meals up for their route. And right now nobody except for staff and a few small number of kitchen volunteers are part of our daily people organization inside the building. And so staff are packaging up the routes and we're actually taking them to volunteers' cars. They're just pulling up into our driveway and we're taking the meals out to them so that they can, our volunteers can stay distant from each other and also ensure like I said the health of our staff, particularly our kitchen staff. We don't want a disruption in our meal prepping right now. And so we're really focused on social distancing right now in an effort to keep our staff healthy. I mean that sounds like an absolutely gigantic challenge. Has this changed your staffing levels? Are you down any staff right now? Right now like I said we do have one special project staff person who is not coming in right now and then our executive director and myself were working exclusively from home except for kind of media things and us getting the word out to the public as to what's going on. But our kitchen staff and our regular office staff are still there every day Monday through Friday. So part of the reason we wanted to talk to you is because you're a helper. You're someone who is doing everything in their power to help the community through a time of crisis. Is there something the public can be doing to help you? Yes so right now monetary support is vitally important since the senior center closed and we stopped serving community lunches. In the first three days of this new paradigm we had 40 new homebound clients. That pace hasn't slowed yet and it doesn't seem like it's going to slow anytime soon. Do you need me to do that one again? No. Okay. Additionally we have been making sure that our regular homebound clients and any new clients that we're taking on at this time receive approximately a week's worth of shelf stable food which has been an extra expense for us right now as well and that is in case there is a disruption either in services for the individual or if there is a disruption in services at the agency level we want to make sure that our clients can get through this storm as well as possible. Are you accepting donations of shelf stable food in addition? Yes so we have a donation shelf outside the building. Our entrance to the senior center is on the west side of the building. There's a driveway there and if you pull into the driveway you'll see a shelf there. We'll take those donations between 8 30 and 12 30 Monday through Friday. They do have to be professionally packaged but we are a professional kitchen and so we do fall under Boulder County Health Department's guidelines which is a good news. It means that we're already up to you know par on the cleanliness thing that you know the home kitchen is just now starting to have to really pay attention to but that means that we can't take home canned items or home baked goods or anything like that. But I think professionally can. Anything professionally shelf stable and we can also take fresh produce. The other thing that we're struggling right now is as you can imagine a lot of our senior homebound clients are starting to run low on toilet paper and soap and as an agency we're starting to run low on hand sanitizer and because our volunteers are delivering meals from door to door we really want to make sure that we as a staff and as volunteers who need it have sand tannins hand sanitizer as well. So those kinds of donations would be wonderful but really the biggest thing anybody can do for us right now is whether it's $5 or $500 it's all so important right now. What's the best way to donate? So you can go to our website which is longmontmeals.org. If someone wanted to drop off food that meets your requirements do they need to provide notice or show up during your hours? Just show up between 8 30 and 12 30 Monday through Friday and the the shelves are just sitting right outside our door ready for people to drop items off. Katie and Samaria thank you very much for all of the work that you're doing to serve the community. Stay healthy. Thank you you too.