Swade West sat at his desk Thursday morning working on marketing materials for Meals on Wheels San Antonio.
A few hours into the day, he set everything aside and walked down the hall to the distribution center to pack meals into bags that he then loads into his car. He gets in, turns on his favorite wellness podcast and drives home to home, delivering meals to seniors who need them.
He’s one of the 125 staffers at the office who must regularly step up to address the city’s usual increase in food insecurity during summer months, because there aren’t enough volunteers.
West has had to deliver meals since he started at Meals on Wheels a year ago. About 200 volunteers are needed per day, the nonprofit estimates, but only about 60 show up per day on average.
Because Meals on Wheels San Antonio does not have enough volunteers, 125 employees across each department— including accounting and human resources— must put their work on pause to make the deliveries themselves.
“That’s almost half of the day that could be spent doing something else,” West said. “It definitely gets busy around here, and the workload can start to pile up.”
On Wednesday, the San Antonio Food Bank called a press conference to encourage volunteerism to address the need.
Across the U.S., the need for food always ticks up in the summer. As kids stay home in June and July, parents need to find ways to feed them breakfast and lunch, which they would usually eat at school. The Food Bank needs 2,000 summer volunteers to keep up with that demand, said Eric Cooper, CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank. So far, there aren’t enough.
Volunteering has an added benefit of improving people’s mental health, Cooper added.
“Everything we know from the data of service suggests that it can actually build relationships, help people feel like they belong to a part of something,” Cooper said. “We can improve our mental health by thinking of others.”
Cooper made the call to action next to Metropolitan Health District Director Claude Jacob, who highlighted the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s recent advisory on the country’s “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”
The advisory, published in May, said people reported feeling “isolated, invisible and insignificant.”
The advisory recommends volunteerism in the first-ever National Strategy to Advance Social Connection, saying that service helps create a feeling of connection to the community and those in it.
Jacob pointed to the five-year SA Forward plan, which puts a focus on addressing mental health in the community. As part of the initiative, he said Metro Health monitors the impacts of stress and loneliness in the community.
San Antonio’s East, West and South Sides experience an increase in mental health burdens, Jacob said. Metro Health has hired more community health workers to address that need in those areas, he said.
“The takeaway is, ‘Each One, Reach One.’ This makes for a healthier community, a healthier society,” he said.
Meals on Wheels does not reimburse gas expenses for its volunteers, meaning a person must be able to afford that to volunteer at Meals on Wheels. The nonprofit does reimburse its employees who substitute for volunteers for mileage.
The San Antonio-based office also delivers outside of Bexar County to Atacosa, Comal, Frio, Guadalupe, Medina, Karnes, Uvalde and Wilson counties. Meals on Wheels staffers deliver to the immediate San Antonio area, and the nonprofit employs 31 full-time drivers, who get paid $14.30 hourly, and four part-time drivers at $16.50 an hour, West said.
Taking time off to volunteer while also dealing with inflation, gas and grocery costs may not be an option for everyone.
“I think after COVID and people returning to work and inflation of everything, it’s more time they have to take off, more money — more gas they have to put in their car,” West said.
Still, West argued that volunteerism is significant and motivating — and serves San Antonians who both need and deserve it.
“These people are individuals who have helped build this community for decades. People forget that these people were working just like we’re doing and now they need a little bit extra of our help. This is someone’s mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather,” West said.
As West knocked on doors holding a warm meal in his hands, he waited as seniors made their way to him.
Then he greeted them, handed them the meal, and was told “thank you” every time.
When the last door closed, he walked back to his Ford Bronco Sport with a smile.
This story has been updated to correctly refer to Meals on Wheels’ delivery structure.
