Respecting and Protecting our Seniors with Christine Winge

Episode Notes

Transcript

Christine Winge:

As I age, I look at a lot of people and think, well, I’m going to be there someday. My parents were both in their late nineties when they passed, so the chances are that’s going to be me too and how I treat people now and how we treat each other is very important to me.

Announcer:

That’s our guest on SideBar today, Christine Winge, president and CEO of the Monterey County Meals on Wheels. SideBar is brought to you by Monterey College of Law, San Luis Obispo College of Law, Kern County College of Law, empire College of Law, located in Santa Rosa and the College of Law with campuses in Santa Barbara and Ventura. Welcome to SideBar featuring conversations about optimism in action with lawyers and leaders inspiring change, and now your co-hosts Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick.

Mitch Winick:

Jackie, we’re thrilled to have Christine Winge with us today who is president and CEO of the Monterey County Meals on Wheels, but also President elect of the California Meals on Wheels. We’re thrilled to talk about this issue for our third season of SideBar because we haven’t really focused on the needs of seniors, another vulnerable population in our community that needs help and Meals on Wheels has a long history of focusing on that and I think provide services that many of us might be surprised.

Jackie Gardina:

Christine, it’s so exciting to have you on SideBar. Thank you for joining us today and welcome.

Christine Winge:

Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate the time.

Mitch Winick:

Tell us a little about how you decided to do nonprofit work.

Christine Winge:

It’s been an interesting journey. That is for sure. I’ll start back in about 2016 when I really wanted to learn nonprofit accounting. My dad was an accountant and I always felt like it was a mystery to be this nonprofit. What does this mean? What does this mean? And I understood regular accounting, but I wanted to learn a little more about that. A friend of mine suggested that with my background that I’d be really good in the nonprofit industry in general. My background is as a marriage family therapist from way back when as well as news. I was a producer in San Francisco Bay Area for several channels up there. Basically I took a job up at the USS Hornet Sea Air and Space Museum in Alameda, so a big aircraft carrier. I was their COO up there and I learned nonprofit accounting, let me tell you. So I figured that would be a good entree to come back to this area where I’ve grown up and went to high school and I’ve known for my whole life that there’ll be a good entree to come back and be an ED down here, which is where I started.

Jackie Gardina:

And when you say Ed Christine, just an executive director of a not-for-profit

Christine Winge:

Executive director. Yeah.

Jackie Gardina:

Was Meals on Wheels your entree into coming back to Monterey or is there a longer brail before reaching where you are now?

Christine Winge:

Well, actually I did come back working with Access Media Productions, which is a local nonprofit running all the cities’ streams and city council meetings and some production areas. So I kind of went back to my roots a little bit in the radio and TV industry. And then when this job became available, I realized that again, back to my background in marriage family therapy and working with my grandparents and my aging parents, that this was more of a cause I could really resonate with

Mitch Winick:

Christine. We know that seniors can be the most vulnerable members of our community for all kinds of reasons, but food insecurity is not something we frequently think about. Tell us about the mission of Meals on Wheels and how it addresses that and other issues related to the needs of seniors.

Christine Winge:

Well, I don’t know how much time you all have, but I can go on and on about this. While most people think of Meals on Wheels as helping folks that can’t afford to survive in their homes or live day to day, we really do a lot more than that. We are definitely tackling food insecurity for the elderly population, the disabled population. Anyone that is homebound, you might come home from the hospital and want meals, can’t source food for a couple of weeks because you don’t have friends or family nearby or you don’t want to impose on your friends necessarily. We’ll supply those meals to you because that’s just part of what we do. It’s part of our mission. If somebody is feeling like they just can’t find the best way to get food easily, then we will then be able to supply those meals and give them a better sense of comfort along the way because the two biggest things in somebody’s life would be food and shelter.

So we’re trying to tackle actually both of those problems with another program of ours. Not only the food insecurity issue, but certainly helping people stay in their homes as long as possible by providing them not only meals, but daily assistance on some level, whether it is helping people grab bars in their home. I mean, I could tell you stories of people who, some of our clients who were walking around with their phone at night because they couldn’t reach the light bulb to change it out, and they didn’t want to ask anybody to do that because there’s this issue where, and I saw this with my parents, if you don’t say everything is going well to folks, people that you love, then people might start saying, well, maybe it’s time to transition into another living arrangement. So people generally want to just say, yeah, everything’s status quo. Everything’s fine.

Jackie Gardina:

Christine, just to follow up on that, it seems like another piece of the work you do is to interrupt isolation and hopefully give them an opportunity to talk with someone to engage in social activities. So how the loneliness epidemic figure into the work that you and your volunteers do?

Christine Winge:

It’s huge When somebody comes to your door with a hot meal and asks how you’re doing, knows your name and says, how is your grandkid or How’s the garden looking today? It’s that connection that many don’t have. We have folks that don’t have any more family left. They’re much older, their friends have all passed, and that’s the only touch they get every day. We also find a lot of people who will get to someone’s house and they’ve fallen. They’ve been in a place where they can’t get to the phone or they’ve broken a hip, and if nobody answers the door, we’ll start our emergency operation where the emergency contact they’ve given us, if there is one gets called, we call 9 1 1. We walk around the house to try to see if there’s a way we can see that person, and every once in a while somebody will call and say, oh, I got a ride to get a doctor’s appointment, and that is a huge sigh of relief. Unfortunately, what happens more often is that somebody has fallen and we’re able to get them the help they need or in some cases they’ve passed and we’re able to let the family know sooner than things had gone a little bit longer.

Jackie Gardina:

The people who are knocking on the door, these are volunteers from your community choosing to do this feels like a big responsibility to be that touch point for someone day in and day out.

Christine Winge:

It’s a huge responsibility and I would encourage everyone to come and take a ride along with one of our drivers. We have some drivers that have been here for 45 years and we have brand new drivers coming in all the time. We have a very strategic and lengthy training process for people, so we prepare them for what might happen and then we certainly have backup support after something like that happens where we make sure that we’re contacting them and that they are feeling cared for. They are people from all walks of life. We have naval postgraduate school students, we have mothers from National Charity League who will come in with their daughters that want to show them what volunteering is all about and philanthropy. We have just a myriad of people. We have over 600 active volunteers right now,

Mitch Winick:

And that’s just for your Monterey chapter. That’s just amazing for one relatively small community. Christina, I suspect that many of these folks are drivers for years and years and then become clients.

Christine Winge:

Absolutely, and that does our heart a lot of good. You have to be able to help them on both sides.

Mitch Winick:

Let me focus back on something you said. When your individual who’s delivering knocks on the door and somebody has been in crisis, your program actually brings meals five days a week, hot meals five days a week, and if that person had fallen and was incapacitated and they didn’t have somebody knocking on the door five days a week, it’s really a lifesaving opportunity in some circumstances, isn’t it?

Christine Winge:

Oh, it absolutely is. Many times they might’ve fallen at midnight and we find them the next day at 10:00 AM and save their life. Had they not had somebody come by, they would pass away there.

Mitch Winick:

I think one of the other things you get the opportunity to do, although it’s not written up in your experience, but if you had a driver that knocks on the door and they’ve been seeing this individual most likely five days a week for weeks, if not months, and they see a dramatic change in their status, all of a sudden they’ve got cognitive issues, they’re clearly in distress. The job is to deliver a hot meal, but it really goes beyond that, doesn’t it?

Christine Winge:

So far beyond that now, while we wouldn’t make any determinations on whether or not that person should stay in their home, we will make recommendations to anybody on their list. So if they have a social worker, which some do, or if they have just a relative, we might say, Hey, we noticed that your mom or your grandma is not doing as well, and if there’s anything we can do to support, let us know, and then they take it from there.

Mitch Winick:

Jackie, I want to take a moment to reflect that as we’re talking about optimism and action. Many of our guests say that they first started thinking about a career in public service while they were still in law school, and schools like yours and mine, Monterey College of Law provide an affordable, convenient way for working adults to attend law school and pursue these interests. Classes are taught by practicing lawyers and judges who prepare our students to serve their community in many of the same areas that we are discussing here on SideBar. For more information, go to monterey law.edu.

Jackie Gardina:

One of the things that comes up a lot is the reason why we do this work, and there’s usually for Mitch and I, a student that stands out or a situation that stands out as This is why I do this. So when you look back at your time at Meals on Wheels, is there a story or a situation that drives you day in and day out?

Christine Winge:

There are a lot of different stories. I just turned 60 and I know that’s relatively young as I age, I look at a lot of people and think, well, I’m going to be there someday. My parents were both in their late nineties when they passed, so the chances are that’s going to be me too and how I treat people now and how we treat each other is very important to me. I’m looking forward to the time where I can come and be part of the community center here at some later date. Right. I’m obviously a part of it now, but as a participant, as opposed to somebody that’s working here, we need to take care of each other and the people that need the most care should be honored. We tend to really gravitate toward people when they’re young. We tend to pay less attention to people when they’re older. We just put them away and they’re fine and we don’t think about them. There’s a Japanese tradition I’ve read a lot about where they take care of their elderly, they bring them in, they have them be part of the family as mentors and with all their sage advice, and I just want that for us too, so little bit I can do to make that possible. I will

Mitch Winick:

Do, Christine, A number of our guests have talked about their concern about the origin of financing for their nonprofits. Some of them are absolutely dependent on federal financing that’s at risk. Many others have completely independent financing. Talk a little about Meals on Wheels. How do you fund these efforts? You’ve certainly got hundreds of volunteers, but you still need food. You need a facility to cook, you need to have administrative staff to manage many of the activities you’ve just talked about. How does that work?

Christine Winge:

We are funded in part through the Older Americans Act, which is federally based, and we get the money through the state of California that runs down through the counties of California to the tune of about 1.5 million a year, and we’re about a $5.5 million operational budget. We are well aware that that could change at any time, and as a matter of fact, because Meals on Whales is a widely known program, it becomes clickbait for any news news organization that wants to say, oh, we’re getting rid of Meals on Wheels now. Well, they’re really not. They really haven’t touched Meals on Wheels at this point, but they could. This administration absolutely could, in which case, what we’re trying to do now is shore up our reserves by moving into more of a business model where we will sell meals to other nonprofits in order to replace the funding should we need to at the federal level.

Jackie Gardina:

Give me an example of a nonprofit seeking meals from you.

Christine Winge:

We work with the charter school right now. We work with Sun Street Centers, the YMCA, we have a small markup we charge and they love our food. It’s going to take a while to build up to the $1.5 million number, but anything helps, and it’s partly why we’re building a second kitchen so that we can not only serve more home delivered meals and more people, more clients, but it’s also to help us in that regards we become more self-sustainable.

Jackie Gardina:

And is this something that’s happening in Monterey County?

Christine Winge:

Yes. Well, it’s happening with us

Jackie Gardina:

With you, so it’s not a business model that all Meals on Wheels have adopted. It’s something that you trying out to see how it can help fill the coffers?

Christine Winge:

That’s correct. We are all independent Meals on Wheels. We have a national organization of Meals on Wheels America. They are more of a lobby firm for us. We all act independently. We all have our own logos. Some people work through churches. Some people work specifically with Area Agency on Aging. Most do not have kitchens. We have a kitchen. I’d say about 25% of Meals on Wheels across America have kitchens, and we’re one of them.

Jackie Gardina:

Like so many of the guests on this show, I went to law school because I wanted the tools to create change. If you have that same passion and you want to develop the necessary skills and knowledge in a nurturing environment built for working adults, join us at Colleges of Law with both in-person and online learning options. Take the first step to building a better future for you and your community@collegesoflaw.edu.

Mitch Winick:

I have probably the most important question. How do you set menus that keep such a diverse population happy?

Christine Winge:

What’s interesting with that is we sent out surveys, I think every quarter if not more regularly to all of our clients, whether they be school children or home delivered meal clients, and we ask them, what do you like? What don’t you like? What can we do better? Mostly the seniors want beer and chocolate. They love the food, but could we add some beer and chocolate and the kids are all happy? I went in thinking, well, how are these kids going to like fish and pork? And we made a few adjustments, but for the most part, these kids have very refined pallets and they really enjoy our food, which by the way, we’ve really done a lot to make it sustainable, organic. We try to source all of our food from within a hundred miles. We have an excellent executive chef who does a tremendous job coming up with the menus and rotates them every quarter. They are vetted through the county for older Americans Act nutritional content, so we’re not just serving a bunch of salt to seniors. That’s not good. If they want to add some salt, that’s up to them, but the meals are very tasty. He does a wonderful job.

Jackie Gardina:

If I’m a senior, is there an income level I have to be to have access to these meals or is it something available to anyone?

Christine Winge:

It’s something available to anyone, but I will tell you, having just turned 60, I am now officially a senior according to the Older Americans Act, which if you think of somebody that’s 60 versus somebody that’s 85, how do you decide, well, what is going to work for everybody? I think we’ve struck a really good balance there in terms of what the county pays for. They pay for meals that are generated for what we call Title three clients, which they have a threshold of an unbelievably low number of what they’re making every year. I think it’s like $15,000. If you make over $15,000, you’re considered not living in poverty in this county, which I think that’s based on a national average. So I am trying to talk to the supervisors here saying, why would we do that for this county versus the national average? Is there something we can do to change that? Because far as I know, nobody can live. I don’t care what age you are or I don’t think anybody can live in this county for under $15,000 or even more a year.

Mitch Winick:

I think it would surprise folks to know that I was just looking at your state website here and the statistics you were talking about, over a million individuals, seniors with food insecurity across California. I just would hope that would shock people and perhaps motivate them to say, well, wait a minute. Some things are harder to do, but delivering a hot meal, it’s not that heavy of a lift. It doesn’t require a lot of training. It just requires a belief that this is a critical thing for our community,

Christine Winge:

And I will say that the drivers really care about their clients and they want to see them do well. It turns it around for them too, and it becomes a labor of love for them.

Mitch Winick:

Would it be out of line for me to call Meals on Wheels and say, my neighbor Mary Smith, I think she’s in her nineties. I’m a little worried. I don’t see her come out anymore. I don’t see her car leave. I don’t see anybody visiting her. Is it possible for a neighbor to call Meals on Wheels and say, is it possible for somebody to knock on her door and see if she wants to sign up?

Christine Winge:

Absolutely. My first step though, if you know the neighbor would be to simply knock on her door and say, Hey, just what you described, can I help you maybe get some Meals on Wheels? Would you be interested in trying it out? That would be the easiest way to get into the system. Some of them just like talking, they’ll accept the food. They might not want to eat that meal that day, but they’re happy to have the conversation.

Jackie Gardina:

Christine, one of the things you said at the beginning, which I found interesting, so often people in the not-for-profit world are hoping that their jobs disappear because they’re no longer needed, and you started talking to us about that Japanese tradition of taking care of the elders. Is there a future where you don’t have a job where Meals on Wheels isn’t a necessary part of the fabric of our society?

Christine Winge:

I definitely think that that’s a possibility, but we’re going to have to think differently about how we are taking care of our parents, our grandparents, our neighbors, our community. We have to change our mindset in order to do that, and it’s everybody.

Mitch Winick:

Christine, thank you so much. We’ve learned more about Meals on Wheels. There was no doubt in my mind that you’d be able to help us understand it and help us understand why it’s important for the future as well. Thank you for what you do personally and very much thank you for what Meals on Wheels does.

Jackie Gardina:

Christine, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you too. Two things that really emerged from this for me. One was you were right when you did the introduction, Mitch, we haven’t spent a lot of time on the needs of seniors in our society. We have put a lot of focus on kids, and I think that Christine really brought that out. We think of the potential that children have and we want to bring that forth through services, but we don’t necessarily take care of or think about the seniors in our society in the same way and what they have to give and what they have given. So I thought that was a really important piece and had me thinking about other potential guests like the Gray Law Organization in Ventura County that specifically exists to provide services for seniors. I think the other thing that really stood out for me in that I thought was important was that need for intergenerational engagement and the need for us not to isolate into buckets. The seniors are over here and the youth are over there, but to make sure that there is that connection, that bridge that she called it across generations so that we are creating a society in which we care for each other across that span and that it’s a two-way street.

Mitch Winick:

Jackie, I think those are all excellent points, and Christine also reminds us that it is so easy for the elderly and the seniors in our community to essentially become invisible. We forget they’re there. They don’t speak up. They cannot be advocates for themselves many times, and they’re isolated. An organization like Meals on Wheels, bridges, all of those issues. They’re there many times. Five days a week, they bring them hot meals, they talk with these individuals. They’re the eyes and ears in case they need additional help. It’s just one of the most extraordinary organizations across communities in California and across the entire country, and I was thrilled to learn more about it.

Jackie Gardina:

Once again, I want to thank everyone who joined us today on SideBar, and as always, Mitch and I would love to know what’s on your mind. You can reach us at SideBar media.org.

Mitch Winick:

SideBar would not be possible without our producer, David Eakin, who composes and plays all of the music you hear on SideBar. Thank you also to Dina Dowsett who creates and coordinates sidebar’s. Social media marketing.

Jackie Gardina:

Colleges of law and Monterey College of Law are part of a larger organization called California Accredited Law Schools. All of our schools are dedicated to providing access and opportunity to a legal education to marginalized communities.

Mitch Winick:

For more information about the California Accredited Law schools, go to ca law schools.org. That’s ca law schools.org.