THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610280079
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 64 lines
Virginia Bracey spent the active years of her life feeding others.
She was a field worker, cutting collards and digging sweet potatoes for a living.
So it seems right that others now feed the 82-year-old Deep Creek woman, who is confined to a wheelchair.
Bracey is one of 94 homebound Chesapeake folks who get two meals delivered each weekday, thanks to Meals on Wheels of Chesapeake.
One recent Friday, Bracey dug into a hot meal of chicken and dumplings, served with small new potatoes, mixed vegetables and a biscuit on the side.
``I tell you I appreciate it, I sure do,'' she said, grinning, between forkfuls.
Come suppertime, she'd have a sandwich made from the ingredients waiting in the refrigerator: egg salad, lettuce, bread and milk.
Bracey can't afford to pay full price - $3.40 a day - for the food, so, like about two dozen other meal recipients, she pays only $10 a month.
The non-profit organization staffed by some 250 volunteers is able to feed people like Virginia Bracey because of the funding it gets from United Way of Hampton Roads.
Last year, Meals on Wheels of Chesapeake received about $34,000 from United Way, whose annual campaign is now under way.
To date, donations total 58 percent of United Way's goal of $15.3 million.
Virginia Bracey waited patiently for her food to arrive, and when Sarah Shipp and Marcella Bateman came through the door of her small home on Shipyard Road, she beamed.
Shipp has been delivering food for Meals on Wheels of Chesapeake since its inception in 1977. Both she and Bateman, her sister-in-law, are from Chesapeake. For the past decade, Bracey has been a regular on Shipp's route.
Some days, the volunteers pause to chat with Bracey. But this day, they're running behind schedule. They have one more delivery to make, so they exchange a few words, then depart.
The meals are prepared and packed at Chesapeake General Hospital. Close to noon each weekday, 24 Meals on Wheels volunteers pack the vittles into their cars and vans and begin their hour-long routes. Each volunteer need only deliver one day a month because so many are willing to help.
Bracey's tiny home is ``the lonesomest place in the world,'' said Mary Bowser, 53, Bracey's in-home health nurse. She's been caring for Bracey for four years, and the two are good friends as well as patient and caregiver. They talk and watch television and the day passes.
On Friday, Bowser prepares enough food to last Bracey through the weekend.
``If it weren't for United Way funds,'' Bracey and others like her would not be able to take advantage of the meals project, said Lavon Edwards, director of Meals on Wheels of Chesapeake.
Thanks to this organization, its volunteers and United Way, Virginia Bracey looks out over the fields she once worked, but doesn't have to worry about where her next meal is coming from. ILLUSTRATION: MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
Volunteers and sisters-in-law Sarah Shipp, left, and Marcella
Bateman make a Meals on Wheels delivery in Chesapeake.
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KEYWORDS: UNITED WAY by CNB