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“I said to my daughter, ‘We could be the only people that they see each week, so it’s important that we’re friendly, we say “Hi,” and we don’t just throw the meal in and run off,’” she noted.
Clare first noticed something was off about two weeks ago, when she reported to the office her concerns with a participant's living quarters. Considering all the circumstances, to her it felt like it was a matter of time before they had found the participant in an unsettling position. “In a weird way, I felt more prepared,” she recalled.
“I think it was a bit of an eye opener for my daughter in particular that people really do live like this,” Clare said. The participant, who suffers from dementia, lives alone; volunteers are the only connections that she has during the day. When the mother-daughter duo found her in her home, the participant had suffered from two falls in just two days, showing signs of painful injury. The pair worked together to help the senior while also calling the MOWMC office and emergency contacts for further assistance.
Clare admitted that she hesitated calling the office two weeks prior with her concerns, but ultimately she thought about the bigger picture. “I felt like it’s a case of ‘see something, say something,’” she said. “I have a responsibility here to say something because nobody should be living like that. I could have just delivered the meal, put it in the fridge, walked away and said ‘that’s none of my business,’ but it didn’t feel right.”
At MOWMC, volunteers are the heart of our mission. Not only are they there to be a friendly face while delivering a meal, but they’re also there to make sure that our participants are happy, healthy, and doing well in their homes.
If you would like to sign up to volunteer with MOWMC, please email volunteer@mealsonwheelsmercer.org.
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