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Meals on Wheels of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania

July 31, 2008

Volunteers make a significant contribution to our society and people in need, especially to Meals on Wheels programs like ours. 14 cents per mile does not even cover the price of gas.

Our agency delivers 202,000 meals each year to 900 homebound elderly and disabled people. All of the deliveries are made by a corps of 750 volunteers. They volunteer a total of 34,385 hours and drive 160,113 miles in order to deliver meals. So far, thankfully, our volunteers have not quit because of high gas prices. They are dedicated to this work because they can see, first-hand, that a daily visit and nutritious meals have a positive impact on the lives of the homebound elderly and disabled people who we serve. A handful of volunteers have reduced the number of times they will substitute each week.

Some of our volunteers ask for a mileage reimbursement of 14 cents for the miles that they drive. Last year, we paid volunteers $3,500 in mileage reimbursements. We are glad to do this. The majority of volunteers simply ask for a statement at the end of the year of the mileage they have driven to use as a charitable deduction on their tax returns.

If we could not get volunteers to deliver our meals, we would have to pay delivery people. Independent Sector values volunteer work at $19.51 an hour. If we had to pay delivery people for 34,385 hours of work, it would add $670,851.35 to our budget each year! That doesn’t even include the cost of vans, insurance and the cost of gas. The impact of this would probably DOUBLE our current budget of $971,250.00 a year!

State College Area Meals on Wheels, Pennsylvania

July 31, 2008

As of June 1, 2008, our Meals on Wheels program started offering our drivers the reimbursement for miles driven on the delivery routes of the current government rate of $ .585/mile. For June, just 8-10 of the 30+ drivers opted to receive this reimbursement. They feel that it is their contribution to the agency. None of our drivers have stopped volunteering because of the cost of gasoline.

We serve 43,000 meals per year, delivering on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week. I do not have the number of individuals that we serve as it is not a figure that we track.

In one year, we estimate that our volunteers travel more than 21,000 miles. Volunteers donate at least 17,600 hours per year.

The rising cost of gasoline has financially impacted our program significantly. It is estimated that we are paying at least $40-50 per week for added fuel charges from the vendors. Also, the equipment repair company charges $15.25 fuel charge per visit. These fees do not reflect any of the "hidden" costs that have been added to the cost of food and supplies which have increased the cost of those items in the past several months.

Monroe County Meals on Wheels, Pennsylvania

July 31, 2008

We are the only home-delivered meal program in Monroe County. We deliver two meals a day (one hot, one cold) to an average of 172 homebound elderly or disabled people per day, five days a week. To do this, we drive approximately 425 miles per day (our county area is about 605 square miles). In calendar year 2007 our program used 12,634 volunteer hours to deliver 89,098 meals.

At $19.51 (the Independent Sector dollar value of volunteer hours), it would cost our program $246,489 if we had to pay these volunteers. Our total budget for 2007 was only about $390,000. I do not see how we could raise that kind of money. Our major annual fundraiser only raises $10,000. Even if we were to use an $18 figure, we’re talking $227,412! And that does not include the cost to buy vehicles, insurance on same, and a place to keep them.

We currently have about 300 active volunteers but the demand for our service is great (we have a waiting list) and we need more volunteers in order to serve more people. Our county population is, I believe, the second most rapidly growing in the state. However, this week alone we have lost two volunteers because of the economy (and the week’s not over).

Meals on Wheels of Northampton County, Pennsylvania

July 31, 2008

Meals on Wheels of Northampton County directly serves 750 older and disabled adults daily. Each volunteer drives an average of 19.8 miles to deliver 17 meals each. In 2007, 606 volunteer drivers contributed 33,028 hours of their time to deliver meals. At $19.51 per hour (The Independent Sector value of volunteers), those hours are worth over $600,000.

These volunteers drove a total of 171,173 miles to deliver 350,000 meals to 1,300 older adults. The volunteers used an estimated 11,412 gallons of gas per year at a total cost of $41,654. This year, 171,173 total miles at 15 miles per gallon of stop & go driving used 11,412 gallons of gasoline. At $4.00 per gallon that equals $45,648.

In addition, drivers on staff at Meals on Wheels deliver meals to central locations for pick up by volunteers. They deliver over 500 meals to Meals on Wheels of Lehigh County for their delivery.

If we had to employ drivers to deliver meals to our 750 clients, it would cost us approximately $400,000 per year, representing 20% of our current annual budget.

Volunteers who deliver meals for Meals on Wheels possess a sense of commitment both to the organization and in a special way to the people to whom they deliver meals. Even though the vast majority of our 1,100 volunteers express their displeasure about the rising cost of fuel, to date, they refuse to let it prevent them from volunteering with few volunteers even reducing the frequency with which they volunteer. They regard it as their contribution and are very reluctant to even request any mileage reimbursement that we are able to provide to them. This is not to say, they aren’t feeling the impact of increased fuel prices and if they somehow could be helped, they would be most grateful.

As a way to express our continued gratitude to them, we launched a “Friends For Fuel” to obtain gas cards and outright gifts to give out to volunteers. Since they know that this help is coming from the community and not from our own operating budget, volunteers have been very appreciative. Since last fiscal year we have been able to give out $3,000 worth of gas cards in varying amounts. This is far from the real need but volunteers appreciate our efforts.

The impact is also felt by our organization with food costs escalating to as much as 125% as a result of current gas prices and our own fuel costs by 32% in the delivery of meals to central locations for pick up by volunteers. Food vendors also continue to charge escalating delivery fees.

New York:

The Community Care Network of Nichols (CCNN), New York

August 5, 2008

CCNN is a grassroots 501c3 community service organization that serves a population of approximately 2500 people in a rural upstate community in Tioga County, NY. We have approximately 40 volunteers, including our Board of Directors and 45 -50 clients. During our first 6 months, January 1 to June 30 of 2008, CCNN volunteers worked 926 hours completing 1058 activities (friendly visits & phone calls, shopping for and with CarePartners (clients), transportation, producing the newsletter, committee activities, etc.). The major medical centers serving our rural population are 10 to 35miles away. Shopping centers and pharmacies are at least 10 miles from our village. As you will see from the above information, trips average 22 miles. From July 2007 to July 2008 we transported 36 different individuals a total of 394 trips for a total of 8696 miles. Using the latest estimated dollar value of volunteer time of $19.51 (available from www.independentsector.org), the 926 service hours volunteer through CCNN so far this year equal a dollar value of approximately $18,000 of in-kind service to the community.

Shaker Heritage Society, New York

August 5, 2007

Shaker Heritage Society relies heavily upon volunteers to present education programs, run the gift shop, greet visitors and help with office tasks. Several of our volunteers have needed to cut back the number of days they come to the museum to volunteer. One volunteer quit entirely because it cost too much money for her to drive 25 miles back and forth to the museum. Several of our volunteers have asked if we could provide a stipend for travel. I have encouraged these volunteers to join the RSVP program (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) through SUNY Albany because RSVP provides a small amount of reimbursement for travel costs. I have not spoken to anyone at RSVP but wonder if they are seeing an increase in volunteers signing up for this reimbursement. Their funding is limited so, this may be placing a strain on them.

I wish that we could reimburse our volunteers for their gas expenses but in this economic climate, we are doing well just to meet our regular operating expenses, which are increasing at an alarming rate. I anticipate that we may lose more volunteers if gas prices keep going up. We may need to begin cutting back on our programs if that happens. We are considering increasing costs for our outreach programs or cutting back on those programs. This would be a real shame because we are in the midst of a strong effort to revitalize the Watervliet Shaker National Historic District with the goal of making it a vibrant community center and natural gateway to the Capital Region (it is located across the street from Albany International Airport). We need to be out in the community spreading the word about our work now more than ever but these high gas prices hinder that effort. It's hard enough to ask volunteers to give of their time to present these educational programs without the extra burden of the high cost of gas. I believe that the cost of gas will have a tremendous impact on museums across the state, many of which rely heavily on volunteer workers.

North Carolina:

Craven Literacy Council, North Carolina

July 30, 2008

We are a small (under $100K budget) nonprofit that provides individualized literacy tutoring services to adults in Craven, Jones and Pamlico counties. Last year (2007), we had more than 150 volunteer tutors who worked with more than 210 students in our service area. The reason our program is so successful in improving literacy levels of adults is the one-to-one or small group tutoring our volunteers provide. Our volunteers and students arrange convenient times and places throughout the three counties to meet for their tutoring sessions. This helps to overcome transportation barriers that often hinder students from seeking help. CLC is seeing a marked decrease in the number of tutors who are willing to travel to meet students, which means fewer students in rural areas are being served (either because we can’t find a tutor to travel or because the number of tutoring sessions have been reduced in an effort to reduce fuel costs). While this observation is anecdotal right now, we know it’s happening because our waiting list is increasing despite having tutors available. I’m sure when quarterly reports come in at the end of next month, we will be able to quantify this decrease in service and willingness to travel. The increase in mileage deduction could benefit many of these tutors and may encourage them to continue their tutoring sessions.

Children’s nonprofit camp, North Carolina

July 30, 2008

We have recently been hit very hard with volunteers not being able to afford gas to help out during our camping sessions and without volunteers we cannot do what we do. We are a non-profit camp and our mission is to enrich the lives of children with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses by providing life-changing camping experiences that are exciting, fun and empowering in a safe and medically sound environment and to do this we fill 2,200 positions a year with volunteers. Each week volunteers are canceling as a result of the gas prices and increasing the nonprofit mileage rate to the current business rate I feel would help tremendously!

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