Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 02/99) - It was time to give those who keep on giving a tip of the hat Sunday at the Baker Centre.

More than 100 volunteers working in the Meals on Wheels and Lunch with a Bunch programs gathered at the centre for a barbecue dinner, raffles and a big thank you from the program organizers and those who benefit from them.

Meals on Wheels delivers meals to the homes of seniors and others who can not prepare their meals for themselves.

Barb Bromley started the program in 1976. She said the people it was first aimed at were old prospectors left over from the 1930s and '40s. Many were living in shacks, some at the Mary Murphy home, and all were showing the wear and tear of decades of hard work and hard play.

"Many of our people didn't have any family, so there wasn't anyone to invite them over for Sunday dinners," said Bromley.

"I felt if we could get one good meal a day into them that at least their nutritional needs would be met a little better than they would be otherwise," recalled Bromley.

Bromley made a proposal that the hospital accepted, and since then meals prepared at Stanton have been shuttled out to clients of the program.

Meals on Wheels is now administered by the home care department of Yellowknife Health and Social Services board. Home-care services manager Heather Leslie said the volunteers are a steadfast bunch.

"People do this for many, many years," said Leslie. "There are a number of people who have been doing it from the beginning."

Teams of volunteers are organized through the city's churches, which take responsibility for deliveries on a rotating basis.

Bromley said the idea was also to provide clients with social contact, something the Lunch with a Bunch event has been doing for the last two years.

Sponsored by the Yellowknife Seniors Society, the program has proven a runaway success. Each Friday during the fall, winter and spring it attracts 70-80 seniors to the Baker Centre for a lunch of soup, a main course and dessert.