Judy Vonhedemann, the cook for the Zelienople Meals on Wheels program, removes hot meals from the stove in the basement of English Lutheran Church, 200 E. Grandview Ave., Zelienople. She makes meals five days a week for the 50 clients of the program.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have scuttled the Zelienople Meals on Wheels 50th anniversary observance, but it didn't stop its meals from being delivered even once.

The program— serving meals to people in need in Zelienople, Harmony, Evans City and Callery as well as Fombell in Beaver County—started on June 1, 1970, said Barb Kaufman, Meals on Wheels program director, who's been with the group from the beginning.

That first day, Meals on Wheels took food to five clients who paid $7.50 a week.

A recent Tuesday saw Meals on Wheels volunteer packers and drivers at English Lutheran Church, 200 E. Grandview Ave., preparing meals for delivery to 50 clients along four routes. Today, clients pay $20 a week, or $4 a day for delivery of a hot meal and a cold meal five days a week.

There's the hot meal heated to a least 140 degrees consisting of meat, a vegetable and a starch, a slice of bread and a dessert.

There's also a cold meal consisting of a sandwich, a half-pint of milk and a dessert in a bag delivered at the same time.

All meals are low sodium and low salt. Diabetic meals are available.

However, it's dietary restrictions — not individual preferences — that dictate special meals. “If people don't like certain meats or meals, we say 'too bad,'” Kaufman said.

Kaufman works a roster of volunteer packers and drivers with an ease born of long practice scheduling volunteers so they only have to work once a month.“Drivers are mostly retired men in their 40s to 80s,” Kaufman said.Cook Judy Vonhedemann, the only paid employee of Meals on Wheels, arrives at the church kitchen before 6 a.m. to begin cooking the hot meals and preparing the cold meals.“I have a volunteer that helps make sandwiches,” said Vonhedemann, who's been working for the program for the past 20 years.“The majority of the food is frozen or canned,” she said. “Farmers drop off their excess produce in the summer.”Vonhedemann said she plans meals two weeks in advance and tries to avoid the same meal on the same day.“Everything is low sodium, and we offer diabetic meals,” she said. “If someone is allergic to something we'll try to make a substitution.”The cold meal offerings tend to consist of peanut butter and jelly, egg salad or lunch meat sandwiches.Asked to name clients' favorite meal, Vonhedemann said, “It's hamburger crumbles which is ground meat mixed with beef gravy or cream of mushroom soup served over mashed potatoes.”

As for a least-favorite meal — “A lot of clients don't like fish,” she said.Desserts arrive from a rotating cast of 15 local churches whose members each take a week or three to provide desserts that are packed with the meals. Louise Burr, a volunteer, works out the schedule for the churches.In the beginning, this Meals on Wheels was an affiliate of the Lutheran Service Society, but the group decided to operate on its own as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization in 2013. The group gets its operating budget from donations.About $15,000 a year in donations come in, said Lisa Litzau, the group's treasurer. “The big ones come at Christmas, but we get a little every month.“Some (donations) come from when someone passes, and they ask that in lieu of flowers a donation be made to Meals on Wheels,” she said.These days, meal preparation is complicated by COVID-19 restrictions.Vonhedemann said she has been cooking while wearing a mask and gloves, using hand sanitizer and wiping down surfaces with disinfectant.“We've been using metal meal trays lately made out of aluminum because our usual paper trays haven't been available,” she said. Their supplier told her the paper trays have been allotted to the medical community.

Kaufman said the same precautions are taken by the packers and drivers, and a new delivery protocol is in place.“During the pandemic, we're asking people to put a cooler, chair or table outside or just inside their door,” she said.Deliverers will drop the meals off outside or just inside the door and stay at a safe distance to make sure the resident picks up the meal.That's the other service that Meals on Wheels provides — making sure its clients, many of them elderly and living alone, are all right.“We've found people who have fallen and called 911,” Kaufman said. “We've found two people dead.”Every delivery contains the recipient's name, telephone number and an emergency contact number.Mary Sutton of Evans City has been a driver for two years on the Evans City route. She said she has retired from the Evans City post office and knows everyone in the town.“Most of the people on my route are retirees and convalescent patients,” said Sutton, as she prepared to ride shotgun with Dan Sailer, a fellow volunteer who will be doing the driving this day while Sutton makes the deliveries.The annual volunteer appreciation luncheon Zelienople Meals on Wheels puts on to thank its volunteers is canceled this year, but Kaufman promises there will be “something special for the volunteers” in the near future.For Kaufman, the reasons she's spent a half a century with Meals on Wheels are clear.“I like all the people. It feels good to help people who can't take care of themselves. I have the time,” she said. “If I don't do it, who will?”She added anyone who might know of someone or who might themselves qualify for Zelienople Meals on Wheels should call 724-452-4270.

At left, volunteers Phil and Meg Lope gather up bags containing cold meals during a recent Meals on Wheels delivery day in Zelienople. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the cancellation of the volunteer appreciation luncheon, but it didn't cause clients to miss even one meal. Above, Mary Sutton of Evans City loads up a box of brown-bagged lunches for delivery along her Meals on Wheels route in Evans City. She teamed up with another volunteer, Dan Sailer, who would do the driving that day while Sutton dropped off the meals.

Above, Mary Sutton of Evans City loads up a box of brown-bagged lunches for delivery along her Meals on Wheels route in Evans City. She teamed up with another volunteer, Dan Sailer, who would do the driving that day while Sutton dropped off the meals.

The steering committee of the Zelienople Meals on Wheels gathers in the basement of Zelienople's English Lutheran Church, where the meals are made. Committee members are, from left, Dottie Gifford; Louise Burr; Barb Kaufman, the executive director who has been with the group since it started 50 years ago; Diane White; Lisa Litzau; Phyllis Everstine; and cook Judy Vonhedemann.