Local public figures deliver meals to elderly

For one day, several Terrebonne Parish public figures got a small sense of what the Terrebonne Parish Council on Aging does on a daily basis.

And after putting a smile on the faces of many elderly residents, they couldn’t take the smile off theirs.

Terrebonne Parish president Michel Claudet joined several other local luminaries who participated in the Terrebonne Parish Council on Aging Big Wheels event, where elected officials, business leaders, civic leaders, political candidates and housewives are invited to join the agency’s daily food delivery service for elderly residents.

“It was a very fulfilling day. I was really pleased to be able to participate in such a worthwhile program,” Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet said. “ … It was really enjoyable, very rewarding to participate, and certainly the meals that are presented are extremely appreciated by these individuals.”

Each public figure delivered roughly 10 to 25 meals last Wednesday consisting of chicken and sausage jambalaya, white beans a beet salad and mandarin orange slices. 

It’s something different every weekday on a five-week rotationary basis.

“It’s a wonderful experience. Just to see the smiles on the faces and they talk to you and they tell you what they’re doing that day. It’s just a wonderful conversation,” said District 52 State Rep. Gordon Dove.

Others participating included Reggie Dupre, Matt Hagen, Martin Folse, Joe Waitz, L.J. Folse, Danny Babin, Joe Harrison, Jo Anne Plessala, Rene Rhodes and, of course, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter.

“We were going to people’s houses that were in their 80s and 90s, and these people are still alive and they want to stay alive. They want to meet people and talk to people,” Larpenter said. “They love that meal, so that might be the only conversation they might have that day or that week with the Council on Aging people, so that’s why there is the passion of everybody involved, the passion to help the elderly.”

In fact, Larpenter had a lot to do with the Council on Aging’s meal delivery program looking the way it does.

In 1995, Larpenter said he and at-the-time parish president Barry Bonvillain allowed use of the kitchen in the jail above the courthouse for daily means on wheels cooking, which had become available when the 600-bed jail in Ashland opened.

“[Council on Aging Executive Director Diana Edmonson] was only doing so many meals a day, and she was buying her meals through a company. She had to pay all the labor, and that’s the cost in anything, the labor,” Larpenter explained. “I would have trustees cook, and I’d have a guard watch over it. We’ve been doing that since ‘95. We have saved the Council of Aging in Terrebonne Parish millions and millions of dollars by doing free labor cooking their meals everyday.”

Since 1995, the Council on Aging partnership with the Sheriff’s Office has provided more than 2 million meals, according to Edmonson.

Larpenter said the cooking crew of 10 inmates wakes up at 1 a.m. Monday through Friday to have the meals ready for when delivery begins at 8 a.m., serving up enough meals for 650 daily deliveries by 15 drivers. That means that the dozens of meals delivered by public figures last Wednesday was just a small sample of what the Council on Aging does every day.

“We have so many good people in this parish. It is the good earth parish,” said Edmonson. “This is the best way to educate the public on what we do. Nutrition and food is preventative medicine at its best.”

In addition to meal delivery, there are five lunch sites and five senior centers, one housing facility and one activity facility within the parish for seniors to be social.

An average of 143 seniors take advantage of the lunch-site meals daily, according to Edmonson.

Other services include medical transportation, lunch-site transportation, bathing, homemaking, respite care, telephoning, information and assistance, outreach, visiting, material aid and wellness – accounting for an amazing 2,000 miles of travel by employees daily.

The Terrebonne Parish Council on Aging does not charge for any of its services. The council will accept donations from those receiving the services as well as the general public, but no payment is required. And donations they have received.

“We’re the premiere agency in the state of Louisiana,” Edmonson proclaimed. “The state has a Council on Aging in every parish, but we are the premiere agency, and it’s because of the generosity of the people. They’re all here supporting us, and they do it every time.”

Edmonson said the Council on Aging’s pharmaceutical program provided $191,337 worth of free medicine to clients last year. 

“It’s very hard to negotiate, but a person on their own will hardly ever negotiate it to get the free medicine. But as an agency, we have studied it. We know where to go. We know how to get the doctor to sign off on it,” Edmonson said.

In July, Edmonson plans to expand bathing services from twice per week to three times per week, expand homemaker services from twice a month to weekly and increase respite services from eight hours per month to eight hours per week.

Edmonson said money has been set aside to expand these services, however she would still like to get the word out about the importance of Proposition 11 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The proposition would call for a state constitutional amendment to increase the maximum number of departments in the executive branch of the Louisiana state government from 20 to 21, paving the way for the creation of the Department of Elderly Affairs. If it passes, functions of the state elderly affairs agency would pass from generic management of the Governor’s Office of Administration to its own department, singularly focused on elderly issues and staffed and managed by people knowledgable in matters relating to Louisiana’s elderly.

“I certainly would like for it to pass, and I’m certainly in support of it,” Claudet said.

Approval would provide a greater voice and the opportunity for more resources for Councils on Aging across the state. But one way or the other, Edmonson and the rest of her staff will keep on doing what they’re doing – serving a whopping 24 percent of Terrebonne Parish’s elderly citizens.

“My staff is always as passionate as I am,” she said. “I have people that have been working here 30 years, and it’s not because of the pay, I can assure you. It’s because at the end of the day they’ve done a good thing for someone, and it’s investing in your future. If you live, you will grow old and everybody will need us.”

For more information on the Terrebonne Parish Council on Aging, call 985-868-8411. 

 – richard@rushing-media.com

District 51 State Rep. Joe Harrison and Kayla Dardar (left) of the Terrebonne Parish Council on Aging deliver a meal to Beatrice Colwort.

RICHARD FISCHER | THE TIMES