After they go to church on Christmas Day, Harriet Kroeger and Gerry Doll of Carol Stream will drive to Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale and pick up about 10 hot meals that have been prepared in the resort’s kitchen.
They will spend the next two hours delivering those meals to senior citizens who otherwise might go without a holiday meal.
This year, Indian Lakes and the DuPage Senior Citizens Council have teamed up to provide meals to about 40 seniors in the Roselle-Bloomingdale area; the resort supplies the food and the volunteers come from the council.
“We’re probably going to provide a sampling of holiday foods,” said Bill Hanen, of Indian Lakes. “Turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie, all things that you associate with the holiday.”
Frances Bush and her husband, Leonard, are two of the seniors who will be on the receiving end.
She has muscular dystrophy and is diabetic and has been confined to a wheelchair for 18 years. He has several disabilities, including arthritis. Although she has a son who lives fairly close, she explains, “It’s 10 steps to get up to his living room and 10 steps to get down to his den . . . my chair is too heavy, and I’m too heavy, to do those steps. If they didn’t come with the food on Christmas, I don’t know what we would do.”
The Senior Citizens Council serves about 900 meals a day in the county. Some 2,000 volunteers package and deliver the food from 36 dining centers; about 300 volunteers work on any given day.
The Indian Lakes-Council cooperation is specific for the holiday, and for that area. However, council volunteers throughout the county will deliver food, as usual, to seniors on Christmas.
“However, we usually see a drop in the food we need for that day, because a lot of people (seniors) do make other arrangements,” said Patricia Terkovich of the council.
“Unfortunately, we also see a drop in volunteers in the winter. . . . Often, we’re really scrambling,” she said.
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Kroeger and Doll have been delivering meals to senior citizens for about five years, after hearing about the need for volunteers in Kroeger’s church, Our Savior Lutheran Church in Carol Stream.
“We both work full-time, so we deliver on Saturdays,” Doll said. “We always go inside and talk to the people.”
Bush says she calls Kroeger and Doll “the girls.”
“They always come in, they always want to know how we are and what we’re doing,” she said. “It will be good to see them Christmas. Everyone should have something nice on Christmas.”