Don Butcher, director of the Sequoyah, Adair and Cherokee (SAC) Nutrition program, said that in the past the program depended on volunteers to deliver meals to homebound shut-ins. The volunteers weren't paid, but they were reimbursed for the their mileage. But now the mileage money available to SAC Nutrition is not enough to cover the gasoline expense.
SAC Nutrition volunteers were delivering 500 meals five days a week in the three counties, which includes about 271 meals per day in Sequoyah County.
Sammy Boyd, manager of the Sallisaw Nutrition Site, said she at one time had seven or eight volunteers who delivered those meals. Now she's down to just two or three.
"It started around the first of the year," Boyd said. "when the gas prices started going up. The volunteers can't do it anymore. They can't afford it, and you can't blame them."
The cost of regular gasoline in Sallisaw was advertised at between $3.15 and $3.25 per gallon as of Thursday.
The Sallisaw Nutrition Site is now depending more on their five paid staff members and their van, obtained through a grant from the City of Sallisaw, but, Boyd said, "The van is a gas guzzler."
The van is also used to transport seniors to and from the nutrition site as well as deliver meals to those who are homebound. Boyd said the nutrition center used to schedule trips to restaurants too for the seniors who wanted to ride the bus, but that has stopped because of the gas prices.
"A lot of our volunteers were on a fixed income, and were retired themselves. They think of it as a charitable thing, but now they can't afford it," Boyd said. "They are going in the hole, and there is no relief in sight. If gas goes up any more, I don't know what we're going to do."
Butcher said the SAC Nutrition Program has an annual budget of about $2 million for the three counties. But the prices of food, the transportation of that food, and even staff salaries are going up. Of that budget $40,173 was set aside for transportation costs. The nutrition site is paying 44.5 cents per mile to those who transport meals to the homebound.
Boyd pointed out the costs are going up everywhere. Beginning in July, at the start of the new fiscal year, the nutrition site will have to pay the new minimum wage, which is increasing from $5.85 an hour to $6.55 an hour.
"We try to start our staff out at about $6 an hour, but that is going up too," Boyd said.
The nutrition program is increasing the mileage reimbursement to 48.5 cents per mile beginning in July, but that still won't cover the cost of gasoline to deliver the meals.
"We've cut our budget. We're having to give this raise, and without any more money," Boyd said.
Butcher explained the nutrition programs receive both state and federal funding, but the funding is not being increased.
The Sallisaw nutrition site also cooks meals for other nutrition sites in the county, which increases the cost of delivery too.
Boyd said the site delivers one meal a day to the homebound, and deliveries are made as far north as the Adair County line. Staff members, the few volunteers who remain, and the van begin loading up and making deliveries between 9:30 and 10 a.m. and sometimes the deliveries take most of the day.
One of those meals is a 78-mile roundtrip, Boyd said, adding, "And we have another meal we deliver to the Scratchout area (in northeastern Sequoyah County)."
But most of the home deliveries are made to shut-ins in the Sallisaw area, she said.
The senior citizens who are able to travel to the nutrition site in Sallisaw are not required to pay for the meal, but a donation is asked and the suggested price for the meal is $1.25.
"But if they don't have the money, it's O.K.," Boyd said. "We don't twist their arm or anything."
For many the nutrition program may be the only meal the senior or shut-ins will get that day.
If a solution or more money isn't found, the delivery service could be endangered.
"Our volunteers just can't afford it any more, and you can't blame them," Boyd said. "Other (nutrition) sites are having the same problem."
