How Meals on Wheels prepares clients for winter weather closures
When Butler Area School District announced a snow day Tuesday, Jan. 16, Meals on Wheels in Butler followed suit, nixing deliveries as snow piled up on the streets.
Terri Tirk, program director of Butler’s Meals on Wheels, said the organization prepares its clients for snow days like Tuesday.
“We tend to send out a storm bag, it's got some nonperishable items in it in case of days like this,” Tirk said. “If we would be closed for a couple days, we would have no way to get them food.”
The nonprofit’s team of volunteers do not hit the road when Butler Area School District declares a closure or even a remote learning day.
Meals on Wheels has about 110 clients in the Butler area, which encompasses about a nine-mile radius of the city, Tirk said. The drivers for the program are all volunteers who deliver hot meals to clients along 12 routes Monday through Friday.
Tirk said while many clients rely on Meals on Wheels for food on a daily basis, the program doesn’t want to put volunteers in harm’s way when it comes to making the deliveries.
“Most of our volunteers are older. We have a lot of snow birds; they go out of town for the winter,” Tirk said. “We can't risk our volunteers’ safety.”
Tirk said Meals on Wheels is always looking for new volunteer deliverers, and interested people can call the program at 724-285-3815.
