PLATTSBURGH — The Senior Citizen Council of Clinton County hosted the kick-off event Thursday in celebration of Subaru’s 2023 Share the Love Event followed by their annual Thanksgiving Luncheon.
“The goal here is to promote awareness for the Share the Love Event and the Meals on Wheels campaign,” Jennifer Meschinelli, program coordinator with the Senior Citizen Council, said.
“This is a national campaign.”
HOME-DELIVERED MEALS
The council is the provider of the Meals on Wheels program in Clinton County, serving hot meals to approximately 450 homebound clients per day across the county.
“The purpose of the home-delivered meals program is to maintain independence, delay or prevent institutionalization, improve or maintain current health status or allow earlier hospital discharges,” Terry Lemieux, Home Delivered Meals director, said.
These meals are delivered to seniors 60 years of age or older who are homebound or otherwise incapacitated due to accident, illness or frailty and have limited support from family, friends or health professionals.
“The home-delivered meals program provides a hot, nutritionally balanced meal for homebound seniors 60 years of age or older and all our meals meet one third of the Recommended Dietary Allowance,” Lemieux said.
Meals are distributed by 36 drivers, both paid and volunteer, across 19 routes from locations in Ellenberg, Rouses Point and Plattsburgh. These drivers are not only delivering a meal but also providing a welfare check on the homebound seniors.
“Most of our volunteer drivers come to us from the AmeriCorps program, so we’re very grateful to that program as well,” Lemieux said.
SUBARU DONATIONS
As part of a national partnership with the Meals on Wheels program, Subaru of America, Inc. and its retailers donate a minimum of $300 to charity for every new vehicle leased or sold between Thursday, Nov. 16 and Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024.
There are currently six charities to choose from, including Meals on Wheels of America, Hudson Headwaters Health Network, The YMCA, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Make-a-Wish and the National Park Foundation.
Since the Subaru Share the Love Event began in 2008, Subaru and its retailers have helped provide 4.3 million meals and visits to seniors being served by the program in the county.
According to the Subaru website, $102,900 has been donated to hometown charities by DELLA Subaru of Plattsburgh and Subaru of America.
BLANKET DONATIONS
The council is also accepting donations of new blankets, sized twin and full, until Friday, Dec. 15 to be delivered to the homebound seniors.
“We’re looking for twin or full size, new blankets for their beds. Because the bathrobes are lovely, but something warm and fuzzy, a brand new blanket on your bed, we all know that’s an awesome thing,” Deborah Alexander, congregate meals director, said.
Drop off locations include the Senior Council located at 5139 N Catherine St. as well as the Nutrition Program located at 45 Veterans Lane. Both are open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Also, Kinney Drugs, located on Military Turnpike, in collaboration with the Council, is hosting a “Be-Santa-for-a-Senior” program in which members of the community can purchase and donate items for seniors.
“If you go to Kinney Drugs, you’ll see the little tags on the tree. and they’ll say Mary T. is looking for, maybe some new slippers, or a pair of gloves, or even a gift card,” Alexander said.
According to Alexander, the Kinney Drugs located on Military Turnpike does this for the seniors every year and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they switched to just donating gift cards, but now they are doing gifts again.
“They didn’t know what to do. Nobody wanted to touch anything. Nobody wanted to do anything. So we decided that we would just do strictly gift cards. So we did Kinney’s gift cards so that they could either help with their prescription medication by their mail, or whatever they wanted to buy at Kinneys,” Alexander said.
“This year, we all want it to go back to presents because the seniors love opening a present and as Terry said, some of them have no one.
Following the kick-off event, the seniors and other visitors were served a hot Thanksgiving-style lunch at noon including roasted turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, sliced carrots, fresh fruit and either milk or water.