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Around 1 p.m. on a recent Thursday afternoon, 90-year-old Sophia Vann heard a knock on her front door.
Standing on the steps of the longtime Gary resident’s Miller home was a very familiar face: former Gary Mayor Jerome Prince, holding a lunch bag filled with food. This visit has no political agenda. Instead, Prince has been a Meals on Wheels volunteer for over two years.
Meals on Wheels Northwest Indiana, a mobile food service, delivers premade meals to communities across Lake, Porter, Jasper, Newton, Stark, Pulaski and LaPorte counties. Founded in 1954, the future of the program has taken on new meaning for its leaders, given the expected federal cuts to food stamps and other social safety nets to address hunger among people with low and fixed incomes.
Out of the seven counties the group serves, Gary requires the highest amount of meal deliveries, said Ryan Elinkowski, CEO of the local organization.
Elinkowski told Capital B Gary that 107,000 meals were delivered in the city last year.
While the organization services communities nationwide, in food deserts like Gary, increased access to affordable, nutritious food can make a world of difference, Elinkowski said. Nearly 70,000 people in Lake County experience food insecurity, according to food bank network Feeding America. For Gary’s elderly-majority community — many of whom are on fixed incomes — paying for healthy meals can be a struggle, according to a 2023 Methodist Hospital Community Health Needs Assessment.
“I think we have the most sophisticated charitable food giving system in the entire world, here in the United States,” Elinkowski said. “Yet we have so many folks that are food insecure, and people not understanding what that really means.”
Prince said that Gary, as an underserved community, grapples with a mix of economic shortfalls that lead to a slew of insecurities, adding that food is one of them. As many residents depend on Social Security benefits, access to nutritious, and affordable food is just one of the ways that they need assistance, Prince said.
Meals on Wheels offers 10 routes throughout Gary, making stops at three community sites — Glen Park, YWCA, and Genesis Towers — and nearly 400 individual homes, including Vann’s single-story red brick house.
As a recipient of the meals for about two years, Vann said she had grown familiar with the organization through her family. Spanning a generation, she initially used the delivery service for her mother, her husband, and now, herself.
After a hug, and a few minutes catching up, Prince dropped off her food, waved goodbye, and smiled.
Dozens of volunteers prepare made-from-scratch meals to be delivered to thousands of area residents. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)
“To find him doing civic duty like this, I think it’s amazing,” Vann said of the former mayor. “He’s very prompt, very friendly, and I just enjoy talking to him. All the volunteers are friendly.”
Prince, who volunteers at least once a week, began in 2023, after the most recent mayoral election, where he was defeated by Gary Mayor Eddie Melton.
“I started right after the election of 2023, and I mention that because … I didn’t want to do it coming up to an election, because I really believe in the work, and I didn’t want anyone to perceive that I was doing it to boost my political profile,” said Prince, who was mayor from 2020 to 2023. (Last year, Prince pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds, and was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay a $26,750 fine earlier this year.)
“I’m completely committed to this organization, and it’s because of people like this.”
Over time, as he delivered meals in the Miller neighborhood and other parts of Gary, he said he got to know residents like Vann on a personal level. He added that he turned each delivery into a wellness check.
“I think the meals are important to folks,” he said. “Everyone needs nutrition. But what I’ve discovered is that it’s also about a relationship or just an extra person touching them and just to say ‘Good morning,’ with a smile and ask about them. I think oftentimes it is more important than the meal.”
Jen Okamura, director of development for the organization, said the deliveries “provide nutrition” and “combat social isolation.”
Okamura said one of the drivers said there’s a woman who gets dressed up just to receive her Meals on Wheels. She added that it “gives her something to look forward to every day.”
The operation, based 20 minutes outside of Gary in an office in Merrillville, delivers 2,100 meals a day across the counties they serve. The organization has about a 55-person staff, and more than 500 volunteers, but are always in need of more, Okamura said. The meals are delivered Monday through Friday.
All meals are cooked in-house by professional chefs in the organization’s industrial-grade kitchen, with ingredients that are sourced from local farmers and growers. The meals are tailored to fit the nutrition needs of every part of the food group. They usually come with a choice of protein, like meatballs, or pepper steak, and are paired with a grain like rice pilaf, and include vegetables, fruits, a dinner roll, and milk or juice.
Volunteers package the food fresh out of the oven, and load it on to fleets of vans that wait to deliver the meals.
Volunteers stock coolers filled with food for distribution across the region. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)
Back at Vann’s house, today’s meal was the 90-year-old’s favorite: Cajun catfish. It’ll last her until dinner time, she says, when her daughter can come over to help prepare her evening meal. Until then, visits from volunteers like Prince have helped fill the gap.
“I think it’s a wonderful organization,” Vann said. “Because they don’t have to do this, it’s a blessing that we have people to volunteer.”
The post With Food Aid at Risk, Meals on Wheels Steps Up in Gary appeared first on Capital B Gary.
