Bay Aging’s Helping Neighbors initiative is in its fourth week and enrollment in the free hot-meal delivery service continues to increase. Volunteers across the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck are delivering more than 14,000 hot meals a week prepared by 17 local restaurants to area seniors and individuals with underlying health conditions who want to stay in their homes during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are absolutely thrilled by the community support that ‘Helping Neighbors’ has generated,” said Kathy Vesley, President and CEO of Bay Aging. “We are also happy that so many of the region’s hard-hit local restaurants have been able to take part in ‘Helping Neighbors’ as it provides much-needed revenue for them.”

To provide additional services with both public health and economic stimulus benefits, Bay Aging has launched a new mobile food pantry program, delivering shelf-stable groceries, sourced from local grocery stores and the Healthy Harvest Food Bank to area seniors who are sheltering at home. In its first week of operation, 250 bags of groceries were delivered to the residents of Bay Aging’s senior apartments across the region.

In Urbanna, 37 bags of groceries were purchased from the Urbanna IGA Market and delivered to the residents of Bay Aging’s Port Town Village senior apartments. In Warsaw, Bay Aging staff sorted, bagged and delivered 213 bags of groceries purchased from Healthy Harvest Food Bank. HHFB also donated 250 loaves of bread in support of the initiative.

For more information about Bay Aging’s mobile food pantry program, or to volunteer or donate, visit Bay Aging’s website at www.bayaging.org or call 1-800-493-0238.