State rules freeze out ‘emergency’ Meals-On-Wheels drivers

Background check requirements means no more spur-of-the-moment volunteers

By Kevin Harden

The Portland Tribune, Nov 17, 2009, Updated Nov 18, 2009 (6 Reader comments)

Tribune file photo

Local Loaves and Fishes Centers, like this kitchen in downtown Portland, prepare food for Meals-On-Wheels deliveries. New state background check rules mean the program can no longer ask for emergency drivers during bad weather.

When snow hits the ground around Portland, Julie Piper Finley usually hits the local radio stations, broadcasting a call for emergency volunteers with 4-wheel-drive vehicles to deliver Loaves and Fishes’ Meals-On-Wheels dinners to 3,000 homebound senior citizens.

Not this winter.

New state Department of Human Services’ background check rules have put an end to spur-of-the-moment volunteers looking to do good deeds by rumbling through the snow to deliver daily meals. Now, Finley and Loaves and Fishes Centers will have to live without the “emergency volunteers” and find 4-wheel-drive owners willing to be prequalified to deliver the meals.

“Our goal here is we bring people a hot meal in person five days a week,” said Finley, the Loaves and Fishes Centers director of marketing and communication who usually wrangles volunteer drivers for inclement weather. “For 40 years we’ve done that regardless of the weather. Last year, we had lots of those bad weather days and we got meals to everyone. For a week I didn’t get my mail or newspapers, but we got meals to people who needed them. It truly was a miracle. This year, it’s going to be different.”

Takes a little longer

What’s changed? In previous years the nonprofit program that feeds about 2,000 hungry senior citizens through 31 food centers and uses about 450 volunteers to deliver 3,000 Meals-On-Wheels dinners has worked with a private company to do its background checks on volunteers. The checks were adequate and quick, usually providing results in a few days. During bad weather — snow, flooding and all kinds of window-rattling storms — the program usually waived the background check for emergency drivers who volunteered by the dozens to deliver meals in their 4-wheel-drive rigs.

Starting in July, Loaves and Fishes had to comply with new, stricter state regulations for background checks on volunteers in all types of federal- and state-funded programs. Since 1970, Loaves and Fishes Centers has contracted with Multnomah and Washington counties in Oregon and Clark County, Wash., to provide daily meals for senior citizens. The program has food service kitchens in just about every major city in the three counties — including the main kitchen in its Multnomah Village headquarters — and about three dozen dining facilities where seniors gather each day.

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