DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711060463

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   56 lines

MEAL VOLUNTEERS DELIVER DESPITE HOSPITAL CLOSING

For Floyd Francis and other East End Meals on Wheels volunteers, it was easy to relocate their meeting place after Newport News General Hospital closed amid financial troubles in August.

Even though the meal program was housed there for nearly 20 years, it was just a building where volunteers who delivered meals met to pick up their assignments. Leaving was simple. Francis was just glad the program didn't shut down along with the hospital.

The program, operated by the Peninsula Agency on Aging, moved to the Tuxedo Beach Catering Service in Newport News.

The program has about 25 people delivering meals to the elderly in the city's East End community. More volunteers are needed. Mary Ann Wright, the agency's nutrition director, said negative perceptions about the East End make it harder to find people to deliver meals there.

``I don't see any difference from this area and any other area,'' said Elizabeth McDonald, volunteer coordinator for the program. ``Crime is everywhere you look.''

Francis, a 73-year-old retired civil service worker, has delivered meals since 1980. He says the hard part is trying to remain emotionally unattached to people, some of whom eat only one hot meal a day.

``It's tough when you go to a house one day to take them their food,'' he said, ``and the next day you find out they've passed on.''

When Francis delivers meals, he sprints out of his car and bounds up the stairs to the homes. He knocks on the doors hard. It always takes a while for recipients to answer.

One man on Francis' list has received meals on and off for a few years.

He said he doesn't get out much because of an illness, and it's difficult to move about.

Wright said that with people living longer lives, the program has increasingly become very important.

Last year about 400 volunteers delivered an estimated 120,000 meals to clients in Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, Poquoson, York and James City.

On the Peninsula, Trinity Lutheran Church in Newport News offered the meals-on-wheels programs to shut-in residents in the community in 1974. The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority from Hampton University also offered a similar program for Hampton residents.

``I got involved because I noticed that a lot of volunteers were seniors themselves,'' said George Bright, a 55-year-old volunteer. ``It's tough work, and the seniors shouldn't have to bear all the burden.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Meals on Wheels volunteer Floyd Francis, 73, packs food at Tuxedo

Beach Catering Service in Newport News, which has been the program's

headquarters since Newport News General Hospital shut down in

August.

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