Newtown Meals on Wheels thanked its volunteers — who make delivering food possible to those who need the service — in the perfect way on October 18: with a meal.

The event was held at Newtown Municipal Center with The Better Day Café catering the event. Newtown Meals on Wheels President Marg Studley welcomed everyone, once seats were filled and everyone had filled out name tags.

“We are very, very grateful for the time you put in,” said Studley. She added later, “Without you I don’t know where we would be.”

According to a brochure handed out during the event, Newtown Meals on Wheels is a community food service program that provides low-cost, medically approved, and nutritionally balanced meals for the handicapped, elderly, or convalescent who are home-bound and who cannot prepare their own meals.

It is a nonprofit state-chartered institution manned by volunteers, with a mission to provide and personally deliver meals to those who need the service, whatever their income.

While the brochure said the service has been available in the Newtown community since 1969, some in attendance said they remembered it starting in other years, like 1970 or 1974.

“Alright, a long time ago ...” Studley quipped.

The event was also held for volunteers to “put faces with the names,” as many drivers interact with organizers by phone only, especially during the last couple years of the pandemic.

The brochure explains, “Anyone in the community who qualifies can receive one meal a day for as long as it is determined that he or she needs the service. The meals are not free but the cost is low, and is scaled down in hardship situations. Meals are billed and paid by mail monthly to suit the recipient. Meals are prepared under the strict supervision of a dietician, and are cooked by a professional staff.”

The meals are prepared at Newtown Rehabilitation & Health Care Center. All of the meals are placed within bags that are then picked up by volunteers. The bags also include driving directions, complete with pre-determined routes and directions on how to specifically drop food off for each person using the service.

Newtown Meals on Wheels board member and Driver Coordinator Colleen Honan spoke after Studley, and she asked each of the people who call the volunteer drivers to stand so the drivers could know who they interact with through those calls. Each person stood, with murmurs of hellos and some applause from the gathered group.

Honan said she has been volunteering with the program for 29 years, and she shared some tips for her fellow volunteers, such as to double-check that names of the food match the names of the person at each stop. She also said if there is no cooler on a property, volunteers should not leave the meals.

And thanks to the driving directions created by Newtown Meals on Wheels volunteers, Honan said, “You won’t get lost in Newtown.”

Newtown Meals on Wheels board member Janet Hovious explained the driving directions are created by using a (now out of print) map of Newtown. When people are added to the service, their homes are added as little stickers on the map.

The addresses are not shared with anyone outside the program. The best route to get to that house is then determined by seeing all the other stops within that section of town.

Before the end of the event, Studley said, “It is so wonderful to see all of you here.”

Speaking of her experience with Newtown Meals on Wheels, she said it is “the most rewarding volunteerism I have ever done.”

Newtown Meals on Wheels has openings for volunteers. To volunteer as a Meals On Wheels driver, contact Honan, at 203-426-0714.

Education Editor Eliza Van can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.