Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.190 | feat. Jennifer Covert from Meals on Wheels of Eastern Onondaga County

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Meals on Wheels Eastern Onondaga County: Nutrition, Wellness Checks, and a Push to Expand Host Noah Chrysler interviews Jennifer Covert, executive director of Meals on Wheels of Eastern Onondaga County and vice president of the Meals on Wheels of New York State Association, about delivering nutritious meals and wellness checks to homebound residents. Serving about 230 people across 12 zip codes, the volunteer-based program helps seniors stay safely in their homes, addressing food insecurity and loneliness, with 17 clients over 100 and a 96-year-old driver who has volunteered since 1992. Covert shares advocacy work in Washington, DC after receiving a Meals on Wheels America grant, seeking $2.285 billion in national funding and recounting client stories showing life-saving impact. She explains meals are prepared fresh daily by volunteers, outlines how to request service (including a $10/day option), and emphasizes needs for substitute drivers, donations, and a new facility costing several million dollars to expand capacity. 00:00 Ninety Six Year Old Driver 00:17 Meet Jennifer Covert 00:48 What Meals on Wheels Does 01:29 Service Area And Capacity 02:06 How To Help Today 02:49 Swag Bag And Brochure 04:29 Advocacy Trip To DC 06:27 Capitol Hill Stories That Matter 07:54 Clients Who Became Family 09:51 Why It Matters After COVID 11:14 Centenarians Still Independent 11:47 Retirement Fears And Hopes 12:35 How Meals Get Made 13:30 Signing Up And Costs 14:32 Scaling Up The Mission 15:05 Dreaming Of A New Building 16:53 Why She Does This Work 20:23 Volunteer Community And Purpose 22:09 See It In Action 23:11 Final Thanks And Studio Plug

My oldest driver, volunteer driver, is 96. He's been delivering since 1992. Oh, that's crazy. He delivers on Tuesday. He came yesterday and delivered to seniors that were younger than him. He's 96 years old. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Good News York. My name is Noah Chrysler.

Today I am sitting with Jennifer. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead and introduce yourself. I am Jennifer Covert. I'm the executive director of Meals on the Eastern Onondaga County.

also the vice president of the Meals on Wheels of New York State Association. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Big titles doesn't really mean a whole lot. How long have you been in the role? Well, I've been executive director for about 10 years, but just about a year for a vice president of the board for the association. Wonderful.

For those of us who might not be familiar, although how could you not be? What is Meals on Wheels and what do you guys do? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Sometimes people don't really know what it is, but we deliver nutritious. meals to homebound folks in our area. So these are people who can't get out of the house. They can't make their own food. A lot of times they live alone. They have no one. And we are volunteer-based organization. So we have a whole bunch of volunteers that deliver the food, have a little friendly face and say hello. And also provide a wellness check, which is way more than a

meal. You know, they're checking to make sure that this person is okay, especially if they live on their own. And we're providing them the chance to stay in their own home and age gracefully. Yeah, wonderful. Wonderful. How many people are What are your stats like? How many people do you serve? How many, I don't know, can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, sure. We have, we're, we serve like 12 zip codes in the eastern onto county area. Wow. And fun fact, all meals and those agencies are separate. So there are other meals on wheels in our county, that serve different parts of the county. And we're separate, but we have the same mission. So we have about 230 people that we serve. And we would serve more than that. And the 12 zip codes have if we had a bigger building. But we are in a little church, a beautiful church.

a beautiful church, but we don't have a lot of space. So we definitely are looking to expand and grow and feed more people. Cool. Before we get into various things that we want to discuss here, how could people help you out right now? Are you looking for volunteers? Are you looking for donations? Are you looking for new people to receive meals and things?

Is that something that you're looking for? All of the above. Wonderful. Yeah, we actually have a lot of volunteers, but we always need more, especially substitute drivers, people who, you know, may want to give an hour or two a week or even less than that, and they want to deliver some food. But we definitely need some support because we want a bigger building.

So a donation would stay right here in eastern Idaho County for a bigger building so we can serve more people. And we are looking for not a whole lot more clients, but definitely anybody who needs our services, we can help. Beautiful. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. You brought me a bag full of goodies.

Of course. I have to bring stuff. I'm going to get in here. I've got Meals on Wheels Eastern Oregon County. I've got a brochure here, wonderful. Very exciting. Do you make this yourself? I did.

Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. Canada's awesome. Well, yeah. Nice, cool. Canva's awesome. Canva's great.

For nonprofits? Yeah, oh yeah. Free. Yeah, yeah, I know. I run Syracuse and profit. We just got our nonprofit status. Yeah, it's good stuff. It's really cool.

Yeah, it's easy. This is awesome. Yeah, I use those every day. Oh, for sure. This is going to go on my desk. That's great. Now I wish I had put more exciting things in there. No, it's okay.

We have business cards. We got a lot of promotional materials. I really don't want you to comment on that. It's instantiased. Okay. Just like, wow, okay. Wow, she's really nice. Meals off,

right. Be safe. Cool, we got some tissues as well. That's great. Put those in your car because you never know when you're going to need tissue. I know. For sure. For sure.

And then we got chapstick. Awesome. Do you want to use it? I probably shouldn't share because I'm going to use it. Well, yeah, you should definitely use it. For sure. By yourself. Good stuff.

All right, cool. We're going to stop the interview. We have to loob the lips. That's actually really nice. Yeah, I know. I was really excited about it. Where did you get these? These are great.

Maybe four imprint. I think I might have, yeah. You know, online. Really easy. And a great pen. Yeah. It's just like, I don't know, what is it? Shea butter or not.

I don't know. It's good. I don't know. I'm going to have to look into that. You seem to really like it. Oh, coconut. Oh, coconut. Yeah.

Like you're on vacation. Yeah. Basically where I'm at right now. We got my palm trees here. We're good. Beautiful. Okay. You mentioned that you just went to Washington, D.C.

I did. Cool. Tell me about that. What did you do together? Well, I got a grant from Meals and Wheels America. It was an advocacy and action grant. It was the first time they did it. So Meals on America is like a big, you know, national Meals on Wheels on.

And we're not under their umbrella, but we utilize them. We're a member. They have a lot of resources that we use. And a lot of times they give grants. And I write them because I write them. money is great. So anyways, I got this grant, but it wasn't just about money. It was like, we're going to send you to Washington, D.C. You're going to go on Capitol Hill, and you're going to advocate for Meals on Wheels National because we need $2.285 billion to serve all the people that

need Meals on Wheels throughout the United States. So there's like 5,000 Meals on Wheels agencies, and they only chose 16 people to go. And so they chose little me. Oh, my goodness. I know. Why do you think they chose you? That's so excited. I actually asked that question because I need to know those things. I'm like, why may? Why did you pick me? Why am I so good? Right, exactly.

Why am I? Awesome and chosen. But no, it was part of it was because they had to set up meetings with Congress, you know, and they set up a meeting with Chuck Schumer's office. So they needed somebody from New York no matter what. But that's still, there's like, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people in New York. But I'm really involved in Meals on Wheels. Like, it's a big part of my life.

And I think that was part of it, too. It's like somebody who's in the network a lot. and you know knows what they're talking about because we had to go and I had to be the meeting lead for Chuck Schumer's office and tell them why it was important that Meals and Wheels got more funding. So they did. I was nervous. They did choose me, but it was fun. It was really fun. It was nice to be in a big group of people who had similar issues and needed, you know, the same type of thing.

Went on Capitol Hill, walked, you know, underground tunnels. That was so cool. I had never done anything like that before. And I'm not huge into politics, but I kind of got into it. Sure. It was awesome. And so we met with them, made them cry a little bit, and little tears. Really?

You told them real stories. I mean, that's how you got to do it. You got to be like, listen, money is money, but this is why it's important. This is how it's affecting people that you might know, that you probably do know, might be affecting you someday. You know, everybody's going to get old, everyone. But, you know, seniors, they took care of us, and it's time for us to take care of them, and we have to advocate for them.

And the one thing, I could just talk all day long, so just stop me if you want me to do that. No, I mean, that's great. The one thing about the senior population is they're invisible. You know, if you're watching TV and any kind of issue out there, money, snap, benefits, all those kind of things you're hearing about families, you're hearing about youth and children, but you don't hear a lot about seniors because they're not in your face. They're at home. They're homebound.

They're invisible, but they need us to advocate for them because they need services. They need food. They need money. You know, all those type of things. So it was up to me to help do that, and it was really cool. That's wonderful. Well, I'm picturing, you've ever seen that video of like Fred Rogers talking to Congress and being like, hey, you know, we need, give me money for PBS. Is it similar to that?

Yeah, I would say. I mean, it was basically like I had an advocacy team with me and a lobbying group. So it was like a group of people. But I kind of just wanted to explain how personally it touched us here, you know. And then they were like, oh, and we need $2.285 billion. They were talking about stats and data. And I was like, Mr. Smith, you know, fell down the stairs. And we found him and called 911 and he would have died if we didn't get there.

Like those are the kind of things I want them to know. Real stories. Yeah. So yeah, tell me those stories. What's the story that made somebody cry? I want to know. Well, let's see. Well, the one story was this one client that everybody loves.

He really loves us too. So we have a really good connection with him. He loves his drivers. He has this little dog named Jack. Everybody loves Jack. They like to deliver because they give Jack biscuit. Sure, yeah. So he put one of our drivers in his will to get Jack.

when he dies. I know, and I was like, when the driver told me. Did he ask? Did he ask the driver? I don't think he asked. They usually don't want to ask for whatever they want to do. And then also he said that, you know, he gave all of his belongings to his brother, but if his brother passes before he does, it all goes to meals on wheels. I mean, that, I know that's like kind of a strange story, but it just shows you the impact

that we have on their lives. I mean, that's how strongly he feels about somebody who brings him food every day. So I told that story. And then the other story was actually Mr. Smith that was Mrs. Smith did fall down the stairs. And her driver knew that something was wrong because her door was unlocked and she always locked her door. So we know them so well. He opened the door and heard her, you know, making noise. And she had fallen down the stairs trying to do laundry, broke her femur, would have pled to death had we not gotten there at that time.

And I got the call from her son who said, you saved her life. I mean, you were there at the time that she needed you to be and you saved her life. those kind of things you don't hear about. You know, we're not just delivering food to your house so that you can eat. We're taking care of them. Right. And it's really special. It's awesome.

Yeah. No, for sure. I don't know. That is pretty close to my heart. You know, I've got two older my grandmother and then my great aunt. And right now they're both in a, it's pretty much independent living, but they've got a lot of like hired on care as well that like helps them out and stuff. But it can be, you know, if something happens, you know, and like, you know, you hear these

stories of older people falling down and spending hours on the floor and it's and it's awful it is scary it's nightmare yeah um why do you think that meals on wheels is so important especially like right now in our society well i mean i'm going to talk about covid for a second i know that's crazy but um after covid seniors really had a much worse time than they even had before so senior food and security has always been an issue um trying to get you know healthy food so they can stay healthy and stay in home, but loneliness and mental health is also a huge part of seniors. And after COVID, they didn't want, not only could they not leave, they didn't want to leave. So, you know, I think that, I don't think that ever went away. So I think it's really important right now for us to

be there for people, four seniors, so that they still have something to live for. And they can tell their stories about their lives. And they can eat good food and stay in their home. And remember all the memories that they had in their home when they were younger and not have to live in an assisted living. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's not what we want. You know, I mean, do you want that someday or do you want to live in your home? Do you want to, you know, age in your home? I don't know. What do you mean? You don't know. I don't know. Some of these like independent living communities, I'm like, wow. Well, some of them are really nice. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And I think once they get there, they're fine.

But I think that, you know, in general, we'd like people to stay in their homes and we'd like to provide, you know, that nutritious meal that keeps them healthier and keeps them living longer. And the friendly face. I think we all like that idea. But I think it's really important for, and people are living longer. I mean, they really are. We have 17 people that we serve over the age of 100. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Living like independently? Oh yeah, living in their houses. Yep. I know, right? That's kind of crazy. My oldest driver, volunteer driver is 96. He's been delivering since 1992. That's crazy. He delivers on Tuesday. He came yesterday and delivered to seniors that were younger than him. He's 96 years old. Yeah. So that's cool. It's awesome. I hope that I, I know right now.

I mean, I feel my body's going to shut down to like 75. I know it. Like, I don't know. 75's a random number. I don't know. I just, I feel it. I'm done. No, I mean, I hope not. But I just like, I don't know being realistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I work a lot. Right. You're tired. Sure. Yeah. I don't know. I think I feel like once you retire and you get older, like miraculously, you change. I'm not tired anymore. I'm now ready to enjoy life at 75. I hope that happens to me.

I hope so as well. I'm excited for my retirement too because I feel like my generation is just going to play video games for, like we're going to, like, I feel like, yeah. You're to scroll until you're. Yeah, just do we scroll for the last 20 years. Right.

I don't know. Beautiful. So cool. What can, so you're looking for drivers. You're looking for when you, do you make these meals? Like are, is there a team that makes them? meals in the church. Can you describe that process? Yeah, that's a great question because it's not like cafeteria food or frozen food or anything. We have volunteers that come in like your aunts and

your grandmothers that come in and make the food that day hot, delicious. Actually, we serve a cold meal and a hot meal and a hot meal first because they smell it and it's hot and it gets there and they're like, oh, I'll take that. And it's really good. I mean, you get a choice of the hot meal. So like one day it could be meatloaf or macaroni cheese and they circle what they want and that's what they get. And, you know, we get to try it. So I can tell you that it's very, very good. But, yeah, so we make it right there in this very small kitchen, package it up, deliver it, and do it all over the next day. So we have like a one month menu that repeats and we change it twice a year. Cool. Yeah. Beautiful. If I am, if I know someone in my family and or a neighbor or

somebody that I care for and I'm like, this person could benefit from Meals on Wheels, what do I do to help support that person. Yeah, that's also, you ask really good questions. Hey, you know what? I mean, this is what you do. I try. So we would just, you could just call us. I mean, we have case managers that kind of do an assessment over the phone.

There's a whole bunch of different programs to. Meals on Wheels cost money if you don't qualify for other programs, but there are programs where it's a subsidized or some insurance company, third party places, managed care places, will cover the meals. But if you wanted meals on wheels tomorrow, you could have it. Even though you're not a senior. Oh, that's cool. If you paid $10 a day, which we all know if you go to Wegmans, oh, sorry, Wegmans,

I love Wegmans. But if you go somewhere and buy food and have to prepare it, it's going to cost more than $10 for two meals, right? And we're bringing it to you and it's hot and whatever. So if you wanted it, it would be $10 a day, but it could be less than that. That's a great deal. Like, that's a great deal. I don't know. That's like really, I don't know.

Do you guys like, is that scalable? I don't know. Sorry, that's a business question. I don't know. Like, do you. So funny that you say that. I'm thinking, you know, when we do expand, we have a bigger building, there are other things we can do. I know that there are other meals and those agencies that cater and deliver, like, congregate meals.

So they'll bring, like, big version of the meals to places for people who aren't homebound that want it. So, yeah, we definitely, we definitely can do something on the bigger scale, just not right now because we're in a small building. But I have, I have dreams and high hopes for us. I want to hear about that. So let's say you come into some money, right? Like, you know, I guess maybe you don't want to talk about numbers, but the way my head works is like, cool, how do you spend the next $10,000? And then let's say you get a million dollars. What do you do with a million dollars?

Right. That's kind of a new building. A million dollars is a new building. I mean, I'm thinking probably two, three million dollars is, you know, at the end of the day, we're going to want to start over. Unless we find it, it's hard to find real estate right now. I mean, we've been looking for years for something that would work for us. We need a big parking lot. Geographically needs to be in our area.

Like right now, we're in Fayetteville. And we have a lot of people in Fayetteville, East Syracuse, DeWitt, Jamesville. So that's a really good location for us. We don't want to be out in the middle of nowhere because our drivers come. We need parking for them. We need a nice big kitchen. So, you know, finding something that's like that is difficult. We might have to just build.

And if we build, we need $3, 4 million. So it's a capital campaign, you know, but we write grants and we ask the state. I mean, there's not a whole lot of money right now with the government. But there's money. And, you know, I think this is something that. a lot of people will back up. I mean, it speaks for itself. Yeah, no, for sure.

For feeding people. Sure. Cool. So you're looking for a new building. What church are you at in Fayville? Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Gotcha. Really nice church.

We've been there for 51 years. Wow. We've been, or I don't know if we've been there 51 years. We've been around for 51 years, our organization. But it's a great little church. And we love it. And they love our mission and they're good people. But really, you know, the goal at the end of the day is to help people and feed people.

And if somebody calls me and I have 230 people and I can't serve any of people, I'll have to say I can't. And I don't want to do that. I never want to tell somebody I can't feed them. I don't want anyone to go hungry. So we really, really want to expand and feed more people out there. For sure. You mentioned that you have a personal connection to Meals on Wheels and that you do this for

personal reasons. Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah. I feel like I've always been connected to my older relatives also. My mom had me when she was 40. So, you know, all of my relatives and my cousins and everybody was a little bit older than you would think because I was a last, I don't want to say last minute, but maybe a little bit of an oops baby. I'm not sure. It happens. It happens. But either way, I was always really connected. Like whenever I went to family functions, I'd be hanging out with my aunts.

You know, like these Italian ladies making me cookies and meatballs. Like that was my life. That sounds great. Oh, it was great. It was wonderful. And they still do it, you know, pinch my cheeks. Jenny, you know, all that, good stuff. But I just always felt a really big connection. And their stories were great. And so way back years ago, I was involved in another organization that advocated for kids that had autism. And I was really into that because I had a personal connection with that. I have a son who has autism.

And I was living somewhere else. When I moved back, I was looking for that. And I saw an ad for Meals on Wheels. And I thought, you know what? I love old people. I mean, I really do. Just love them so much. I can advocate for them. I mean, it's just a different set of people, right? Thank God I did that.

Because I mean, I love kids, have them, but love old people much more. And it's really great to be that voice for them and to go in every single day and be amongst those wonderful people. And I mean, I have 200 volunteers and that's what they do. They do things for people and they don't expect anything in return. I love them. And I love our clients. I mean, it's just a great place to be. I'll never leave. I really won't. Wonderful. Yeah. I love old people too. They're fun.

I don't know. They really are. I have a brief story that is, do you mind if I share it's completely unrelated? No, please. No, please too. I was visiting my great aunt and my grandmother last month and we're sitting down. We're in the bingo hall and we're playing bingo or we're like waiting for bingo. There's this woman that comes into, you know, the room and she is asking very loudly this other woman.

She goes, hey, can I sit here? You know, and this woman who is sitting down and has this other seat. She goes, no, this is saved. This is saved for someone else. And then the woman who's standing, she goes, oh, thank you. She goes to pull out the chair. And the woman goes, no, no, no, this is saved. This is a saved seat.

And they go back and forth like five or six times, right? Like, she does not understand that this seat is being reserved for somebody else. And this woman, the woman who's sitting down starts to like yell. She's like, this is saved. Like, no, this is saved. She's upset. She's real mad. And so like, and I'm like, oh my gosh, and I'm watching this.

And I walk over. I go, hey, you know, come on and sit with us. You know, we got an open chair. Come on over here and come sit with us. And so I, and she goes, oh, thank you so much. And we're on the way back over to the chair to sit with my grandma, my great aunt. And the woman goes to me, she goes, hey, thank you so much for the invite over here. But I do that on purpose.

I pretend to like be C dial. She's triggering. Yeah. She's like, I don't like that lady at all. I try to miss with her a little bit. And I was like, this is the best. You're like, I want to be your best friend. Yeah.

She's the best. Just like, yeah, to, like, pretending to be seen out, to rage bait the other inmates. I'm obsessed with that story. I'm telling that when I get back to the office. She's the best. She's the best. I love her to death. Yeah, it's never a dull moment.

I mean, for sure, there are people that work in the kitchen that, you know, I'm scooping the food and no one else is coming here to scoop. I'm the scooper. Yeah. Sure, scoop away, you know. But their hearts are so big. And they're all different personalities. And every day we have a different set of volunteers.

So literally my job is never dull. Like I go in and I'm like, all right, we got the Wednesday crew today. Let's see. I love it. It's seniors volunteering to. For the most part. I mean, we do have younger people. We have professionals.

We have people who come on in their lunch break. But I would say the majority of people are older, retired. But I think it's a win-win situation. I'm sure it's a win-win situation for them too because they come and they socialize with each other. On Mondays, they come like an hour and a half before they have to leave and they're having coffee and chatting and, you know, riling me up and, you know, making fun of me, which happens this Monday. Yeah. And so I think that it's for them too. You know, they're doing it because they have big hearts and they want to help, but they also love the connection that they're getting. Yeah. So that's awesome.

So it's, it's not only the service that you're providing to the community, but it's the people coming together to make the food. There's like community there as well. Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Yep. Cool. And routine and, and, you know, purpose. when you're older. Purpose. That's a really good word. Yeah. I mean, especially, I don't know what it's like to be retired,

but I have sisters that are retired and my brother's about to retire. And I don't know what I would do with my time, really, like when I think about it. I don't know if you ever think about that. But I know that part of it's going to be volunteering because I want that. I want to be able to have that purpose. I want to be able to go and say, and feel good about myself. I feel that way every day when I go to work. But I want to keep doing that when I'm not working.

So I'm sure I'll volunteer. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, cool. Is there anything that we're going to do. we didn't talk about that you want to touch home oh there's tons of stuff okay i don't know how much time you have no no no i just uh i really i really appreciate the opportunity to come talk about meals on wheels because i think it's something that really isn't talked about very often um and i think if anybody's ever in

in an area where there is a meals on wheels agencies stop in and see how it works because it's pretty cool it's like a well-oiled machine i like to bring people into to i mean you definitely should stop in it's really neat like between 10 and 11 o'clock when all the drivers are coming in and they put their numbers up and they pack their meals and they go out the door and they deliver. It's just awesome to see what is put into this service. And then even doing a ride along like going on a drive and delivering to somebody to see the impact that you have on the people that are at home. It's just awesome. Wonderful. So thanks for let me share. Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. This was cool. I had a lot of fun. Good. I'm glad.

Thank you for my gifts. I got protection. I think after today I'm might buy some different things. You brought that, so thanks. No, thank you so much for going on, Jenny. I had a lot of fun. Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for watching. Good News York, guys.

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