Heardmont Meals on Wheels seeks to expand daily deliveries

Before Monty Simmons could knock, Richard Barth opened the door to reveal his quiet apartment. Barth’s wife, Norma, sat motionless in the chair behind him, facing away as he reached for his lunch, two vacuum-sealed plastic trays and two plastic bags of bread and milk. 

At more than 90 years old, Barth’s thick glasses sank on his nose and his stature matched his voice, short and thin but crisp all the while.

Barth was a U.S. Army man. In World War II he was a member of the LCM unit, a land-based operation that spent more time in the water than some members of the U.S. Navy, he said. The unit dispatched small, barge-like boats from bigger ships to land troops and tanks on the beaches of North Africa. They brought the first wave of soldiers to set the beaches. If they were successful, the cavalry could make a safe landing.

But he can’t drive anymore, and neither can Norma. Nor can Peggy Shoemaker, John and Nellie Cole, Georgia and John Krahn, Betty and Mary Davis and Martha Williams. 

So, Simmons brings their food to them. 

One of many

Simmons is one of about 40 volunteers with the Heardmont Park Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels program. He currently drives the Meadow Brook route to deliver 10 meals over six stops. It’s one of three routes covered by the center. The others are the Heardmont route and the Riverchase route, each with a similar number of meals to deliver.

“This is a 32-mile trip,” he said as he stepped into his gold Buick. “Last year, I was driving it six times a month.” 

Multiply by 12 months, and Simmons put about 2,300 miles on his car delivering 720 meals in 2013. The miles aren’t an issue, though. In his life, he’s driven millions.

Simmons, an 83-year-old Greystone Village resident, was also a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. He joined the Navy Reserves after WWII and was called up to active duty in 1952.

“I filled out an application that asked if I wanted shore duty or water duty,” he said. “I signed up for the shore, and well, they put me on a ship. I stayed on that boat until I got out.”

He was a printer on the USS Shenandoah. When he left active duty, he went to school at Auburn University, but paper remained a part of his life. In 1959 he signed on as a sales representative with the Birmingham Paper Company, which would later become International Paper. For 33 years he sold a line of school supplies and stationary for them, covering a territory that stretched from Nashville to the Gulf Coast and east to Atlanta.

He might not have been around the office much, but he did make friends with the woman across the hall. She was in corrugated boxes, Simmons said, and her name was Joan.

“We’ve been married 52 years,” he said as he lifted the lid of the gray, insulated tote in his trunk, removed a plastic tray and started toward Peggy Shoemaker’s door.

And many more

Shoemaker, Simmons’ first stop on his route, suffers from debilitating osteoporosis that has sent her to the operating table multiple times.

“Your bones just kind of disintegrate,” she said. 

She has survived four back surgeries and several more on her hips, which is where her problem first appeared. Several years ago, she lost the use of one suddenly and crumpled to the floor. When she went in to have an artificial hip installed, her doctor told her things were worse than she thought. Her condition required immediate back surgery. 

Still, she answered the door standing, wearing a pink robe, and when she saw Simmons, her smile took over her face.

“You know, if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have been eating,” she said of the volunteer drivers. “What I do is eat half of it now and save the rest for dinner.”

Simmons handed off her short ribs, limas and sliced carrots and returned to his Buick with a smile. He can finish this route in a little more than an hour, he said, if he doesn’t chat too much. But, he never minds catching up.

“She always pops up and walks right to that door. It’s real inspiring,” he said, adding that he and other volunteers are often the only people recipients see for the day. “But she’s not the only one who splits her meals.”

From there, Simmons heads to the Narrows to drop off meals for John and Nellie Cole and Georgia and John Krahn, both Auburn fans like he is. After that, he heads west to the Barth’s apartment, where he climbs 10 speed bumps on his way in and nine on the way out.

“See those emergency contacts?” Simmons said, pointing at a sheet on his binder as his Buick lurched over the first of 10. “If you ring the doorbell and no one comes to the door, that’s who you call.”

Simmons said he’s dialed the numbers often, and he usually receives a response like, “Oh, she had a doctor’s appointment and forgot to call.” Once though, he called out of emergency. On a delivery on Valleydale Road, Simmons and his wife rang the bell of a meal recipient named Maria.

“She always came from the back bedroom somewhere,” Simmons said. “But this time, as soon as she got to the door, she bumped up against something and fell flat on the floor.”

Avoiding panic, Simmons sent his wife in through Maria’s window to help her up. Maria, thankfully, was OK. 

Help wanted

Each meal delivered through the Meals on Wheels program is cooked early in the morning in Brent, Ala., about an hour southwest of Birmingham. The food is shipped in warming containers to Heardmont, where it’s divided into 37 servings. Each is vacuum-sealed at the site and loaded for delivery, which takes place five days a week.

Recipients pay $2 for each meal if they can afford to, meaning couples like Richard and Norma Barth spend about $80 a month for the service.

“I can’t complain about the food,” Richard said, noting that when he could drive he visited the center every night for dinner. “I always think about them C-rations. These are pretty good meals.”

Heardmont Park Senior Center Director Nancy Ledbetter wants to expand the program to include a fourth route in the Inverness area, and she wants it to launch on April 1. She said the center’s goal is to rework the routes so each includes about eight stops, and to do so she needs about 15 more volunteers to agree to deliver.

Simmons did the math: If approximately 30 meals go out now, it adds up to 7,800 meals delivered each year. Increasing the number of recipients to 45, the total grows to 11,700 a year. A bigger volunteer network would not only ensure all those meals are delivered but also give the center a chance to bring more food to area shut-ins.

“This is just so rewarding to me and all of us who do this,” Simmons said. “We’re just filling a much-needed role because if we didn’t have Meals on Wheels, these people wouldn’t get anything to eat all day long.”

“If I have any pains that day, they’re gone by the time I finish,” Ledbetter added.

Heardmont is hosting a luncheon for its delivery volunteers on March 12 at the center. For more information, call Ledbetter at 991-5742.