As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact many programs in our communities, essential services like Meal Deliveries continue to keep isolated seniors safe, connected and healthy.
Lilian Sayant, 95, has been receiving meals for over a decade since losing her husband. When cooking meals became too difficult, our Meal Deliveries team started delivering home-cooked meals to her and have since become something like an extended family.
Ontario’s order to ‘stay at home’ in response to COVID-19 have been particularly tough for seniors like Lilian: “I haven’t been out of the building in a month now. You stay in your own apartment. I moved here because of all the social activities and now it’s all cancelled,” she shares.
Until such orders are lifted, Lilian looks forward to her meal deliveries and the opportunity to connect with someone each day from the outside world. “Someone phones me from the Carefor Nor-Dun Support Centre every morning to check on my well-being. It’s very nice, and you know they care,” she says. “They’ll knock at my door and step back to the other side of the hallway to maintain distance and set the meal on my little stool out in the hallway next to my door.”
Although Lilian isn’t able to have that face-to-face interaction, staff are striving to reduce that sense of isolation while still providing an essential service to the client.
Lilian admits social distancing from loved ones has been hard, but reminds us, “we’re all in this together.”
“You see a lot in 95 years. The world has changed. I remember the Great Depression and that was hard times. We will get through this.”
In 2018-2019 alone, nearly 55,000 meals were delivered to more than 2,000 clients across Eastern Ontario. To learn more about Meal Deliveries in Eastern Counties, click here. If you’d like to support seniors who need it the most during this time of crisis, donate here.