AGING GRACEFULLY, AGING WELL 

Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada: Meals on Wheels

If you stop by the newly expanded kitchen and food storage warehouse for the Meals on Wheels program at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, you just might find Deacon Tom Roberts taste-testing the recipes for upcoming deliveries. Deacon Roberts, the organization’s president and CEO, takes an active role in overseeing Meals on Wheels, which started operations in 1975 and serves 900,000 meals annually to 2,450 seniors – more than double its original size. The menus are crafted by a chef and dietitian, so not only are the meals delicious, but they are also healthy for the seniors. 

Each week, the meals are delivered by trained drivers who also do a wellness check and provide companionship for the recipients. Sunny has had a few drivers over the years, including one who mentioned he liked ice cream, so she kept Klondike Bars in the freezer to share with him. 

“It’s so much more than the meals that come,” Sunny says. “I still do my own housework and fumble in the yard and carefully drive my car, but I am a handicapped individual, so it just lightens your week. It’s the human touch — it brings you a smile and lets you know you’re still worthwhile. It gives you a spiritual lift.” 

Once, when Deacon Roberts was riding along with a driver for the day, he noticed a recipient had her food tray on the floor. She couldn’t afford pet food, so she was sharing her weekly food deliveries with her dog. Now, thanks to grants and donations, the Meals on Wheels program offers free pet food as part of the deliveries. 

The program has a wait list, and the goal is to expand deliveries to 3,500 seniors in the future. By serving frozen meals, they’re able to be more efficient. Each meal costs the program just $9, because they order ingredients in bulk and plan and cook the meals well in advance, thanks to the freezer space in the agency’s new food storage warehouse. Now they can prepare and freeze 1,250 meals in an hour, compared to 750 previously. 

“This program is keeping people out of the ER prematurely. It keeps hospital visits down, because seniors are able to have a regulated diet,” says Deacon Roberts, who will be retiring at year’s end after leading the agency since 2012. “It also keeps them independent. There’s a public common good, from the economic standpoint, and the gift of seniors having the dignity that they’ve earned, which is to grow old gracefully. Hopefully we all get to do that. The end of our mission statement says, ‘God’s compassion transforms lives,’ and that’s exactly what this program does.” 

Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota: Active Aging Program

Starting at 7 a.m. every Monday and Wednesday, the sounds of big band music fill Pleasant Valley Church in Winona, Minnesota. A group of 15 older adults is spread out in the large, open space in the local megachurch, doing aerobics moves to the beat of the music. Janet Heukeshoven, a retired music education professor from Saint Mary’s University in Winona, leads the group through the routines, followed by balance exercises, weight training and a cool down stretch.

When the group meets on Fridays, there’s more musical variety, because Heukeshoven asks the participants to take turns choosing the playlist. It’s one way they’ve all gotten to know more about each other through the classes, which are part of the Stay Active and Independent for Life (SAIL) exercise program offered by Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota.

SAIL is an evidence-based workout program designed to prevent falls and promote a healthy lifestyle. The classes are offered daily, free of charge, across the 20 counties that Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota serves. Volunteers like Heukeshoven teach the classes, and the workout spaces are donated through local partnerships, such as with Pleasant Valley Church. Another is with an ambulance bay that offered its garage space — the class instructor had to learn how to back the ambulance out before each workout to make space.

The SAIL classes provide community as well as physical activity. Heukeshoven’s group does book exchanges, grabs coffee after class and even has one participant who plays “Happy Birthday” on her harmonica for each member. If a birthday falls on a day when they aren’t working out, she’s sure to deliver the song over the phone.

“The community aspect is huge. I think that’s just as important as the physical work, which, no one will deny, is wonderful for all of us,” says Heukeshoven, who started as a participant in the SAIL classes, then trained to be an instructor.

Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota also cultivates community with its Reasons to Write pen pal program, which pairs seniors with a local fourth-grade student as a pen pal.

Sue Degallier, the Active Aging Program director at Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota, has seen the program enrich the lives of both the pen pals and the young students through intergenerational friendships. And she’s gotten a good chuckle when the pen pals tell her they sometimes have to Google what the kids write to them.  

Teri Townsend participated in the Reasons to Write program when she was a fourth-grade teacher at Bridges Community School in North Mankato, Minnesota. She retired at the end of the school year in 2024 and plans to participate this year on the other side, as one of the pen pals.

As a teacher, Townsend saw the academic benefits of the program for her students: “Tidying up our sentences, getting us to ask great questions, thinking about the answers we received and how that could spur a deeper conversation,” she says.

And after writing to each other once a month throughout the school year, the pen pals get to meet in person at a special event at the end of the year. “It just really energized the pen pals. They were so excited to meet these kids that they’d been writing back and forth to,” Townsend says.

Degallier attends the meetup parties and adds, “You would think there might be a lull in the conversation, but they are talking the whole time and laughing and sharing.”

With each of these senior services programs, Catholic Charities is showing its commitment to serving people for the long haul, according to Degallier.

“Much of what is done in agencies like ours is meeting people in a crisis, whereas working with older adults, we see a very different way of serving them,” she says. “We see people giving back as volunteers because they may know that down the road, they may need those services themselves, and Catholic Charities can help.”

Maura Sullivan Hill is a writer and editor based in Nashville, Tennessee.