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Orange County meals on wheels program raises funding to continue to serve seniors

A Meals on Wheels program in Orange County has raised money via GoFundMe to help increase their output as they look to assist underserved seniors in the area.

Posted Updated

By
Lora Lavigne
, WRAL reporter
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Since the coronavirus, the Orange County Rural Alliance Program, or OCRA, has had to change the way it operates.

Volunteers can no longer visit with seniors. All they can do is leave meals on the porch.

But there is a new campaign that has been launched to keep the meals on wheels-style program on the road.

Orange County has a pocket of vastly underserved seniors who live in rural areas.

Volunteers say their services are needed now more than ever before as all 85 of their elderly clients are stuck at home.

OCRA is a program that relies heavily on community support to stay afloat, and organizers are worried funds will run out for the meals on wheels program.

"For one thing, they're providing more meals than they're used to because there are seniors who can't get out in the best of times," campaign organizer Grace Camblos said. "Now, their families can't visit to bring food."

Camblos says it has become a necessity to increase meals from twice a week to 10 meals every two weeks.

"We hit our goal of one month's food and expenses in, like, three days, which was amazing," she said.

A GoFundMe page is keeping the program moving for now, but volunteer Nic Beery says it will take $16,000 to feed the program's seniors for the next two months.

“The cost of these 10 meals is much more because they’re pre-made," he explained. "They’re packaged, they’re frozen and it’s just costing us so much more money."

As funds stretch to the limit and social distancing is the norm, volunteers are making a plea for help to continue their services.

“The meals are a lifeline," Beery said. "There’s no question. For someone who has a hard time standing, has a hard time getting to the stove, has a hard time moving, might be on oxygen … This really is a lifeline.”

OCRA is currently a little over three quarters of the way to reaching its goal for the next two months.

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