For homebound seniors, nutritious Meals on Wheels; for developmentally disabled adults who deliver them, a sense of purpose

Gunars Bundza wants the volunteers who deliver meals every weekday to his second-floor apartment to know how much he appreciates it.

He is 87 and can’t walk much anymore, let alone bring groceries up a flight of stairs.

He had just received enough food on Friday, Jan. 18, to last him through the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

“The volunteers are doing this every day. Rain or shine, they’re here,” Bundza said, sitting at a table near the open front door of his studio apartment in Costa Mesa, where volunteer Joey DeCarlo dropped off four meals prepared to his dietary needs.

“I can’t thank them enough. For me, Meals on Wheels is a perfect thing.”

Here’s what Bundza doesn’t know: what delivering those meals to about 40 seniors around town means to DeCarlo and all the volunteers from Project Independence, a nonprofit that serves developmentally disabled adults.

Bundza wasn’t there to see the big grin on the face of DeCarlo, 37, of Newport Beach after he was back in the van driven by community support specialist Darrin Mackel.

Asked how he feels about getting food to people like Bundza, DeCarlo, who has epilepsy and wore a helmet to protect his head in case of a seizure, summed it up in one word that broke through his smile: “Better.”

Door-to-door

Project Independence has provided volunteers for the Meals on Wheels program over the past 18 years, with 40 volunteers who do door-to-door deliveries throughout Orange County.

Some go out with a specialist like Macklin for the deliveries.

Others stay back at the senior centers that serve as a staging ground, helping to unload the refrigerated and frozen meals that arrive in the morning to be sorted into coolers for each of the routes.

They also keep the staging area clean and help load the packed coolers into the vehicles of other volunteers.

Friday morning at Costa Mesa Senior Center unfolded with a bit more urgency since extra meals had to be handled for the holiday weekend.

There were seven Project Independence volunteers on hand — three to deliver meals and four who stayed on site to assist Carol Warga from Anaheim-based SeniorServ, a nonprofit that is the largest of the three organizations in Orange County providing Meals on Wheels and hot lunches at community centers to older adults.

“They do a lot,” Warga said. “This whole program is on their shoulders. I’m just supervising — they know what to do.”

She throws up her arms, “What if I had to do it without them?”

SeniorServ provides meals for about 2,000 seniors a day in Orange County, between the Meals on Wheels and hot lunch programs. The number can fluctuate, but 750 to 800 frail or home-bound older adults get Meals on Wheels through SeniorServ.

Meals on Wheels is among several health and human services programs not affected by the partial government shutdown because federal money was appropriated last fall to run through October, said Darla Olson, vice president of advancement at SeniorServ.

Volunteers are the heartbeat of the program and Project Independence has been a constant over the years, Olson said: “We just really value this partnership. It’s been wonderful.”

‘Thank you’

Here’s what Martin Segura, 52, likes best about his volunteer role when he delivers the meals: “They tell us ‘Thank You.’”

Segura likes to wear a black cowboy hat and shiny black cowboy boots that add to his 6-foot-4-inch frame.

He looked forward to lunch with his Project Independence buddies after the deliveries. Later in the evening, there’s the Fun Time Dance for adults with developmental disabilities that takes place every third Friday at Edison Community Center in his hometown of Huntington Beach.

But first there was work to do.

Along the way, Jennifer Elliott, 43, who also lives in Huntington Beach, led the banter in the van.

“How many stops are there?” she asked Macklin. And then, “Can I do the first one?”

The delivery crew made four stops along their route, a trip that took about an hour.

Bundza was the second delivery, and his door stood open in expectation of the visit.

“Meals on Wheels is the greatest thing for a person like me,” said Bundza, a native of Latvia who emigrated to the United States with his parents after World War II.

His caregiver, Sylvia Carmona, praised the Project Independence volunteers.

“They’re always on time and he always has food to eat.”