Image: Compassionate Neighbourhood Health Partners Society / Verna and Jean are pictured as part of a exploratory pilot project that connects volunteers with isolated seniors right in the comfort and convenience of their home where they enjoy a meal together. CNHPS has 40 seniors paired with 28 volunteers. The volunteers are trained and vetted and belong to either Compassionate Neighbours or to the Chilliwack Senior Peer Counsellors.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack non-profit ministry

Chilliwack non-profit connects isolated seniors with local volunteers through new pilot project

Sep 26, 2024 | 6:49 PM

CHILLIWACK — Chilliwack-based Compassionate Neighbourhood Health Partners Society (CNHPS) has embarked on an exploratory pilot project that connects volunteers with isolated seniors right in the comfort and convenience of their home.

According to a news release from CNHPS staff member Janice McMurray and board president Connie Stam, the non-profit group’s new Enhanced Social Meals Project is an exploratory pilot project that will continue until the end of March 2025. This new pilot project is funded through United Way BC and features two distinct branches, both designed to bolster the Chilliwack community.

The first branch involves volunteers participating in a social meal with a lonely senior in their home. On a monthly basis, volunteers would take a free meal for themselves and for a senior participant that rarely leaves home and spend an hour socializing while eating the meal.

The meals are purchased from Mae’s Elite Foods whereby volunteers pick up the meals on one of the two last Fridays of the month, or the last Wednesday of the month. The volunteer arrives at Mae’s Elite Foods at 11:30 a.m. and picks up the warm meal to take directly to the senior’s home.

“We are looking for more volunteers and also to receive referrals of socially isolated seniors who could benefit from this project and would enjoy this,” CNHPS said. “This would also include senior couples where one of the spouses rarely leaves the home. They would be paired with another couple or with two volunteers for the monthly social meal.”

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Image: CNHPS / Maria and Evelyn, who are part of the pilot project that connects volunteers with seniors where they enjoy a meal together.

As of August, CNHPS has 40 seniors paired with 28 volunteers. The volunteers are trained and vetted and belong to either Compassionate Neighbours or to the Chilliwack Senior Peer Counsellors.

“We would like to encourage businesses to allow their employees to take an extended lunch hour once monthly to share a free meal with a lonely senior,” CNHPS said. “It would mean taking a 1.5- to two-hour lunch break once monthly on one of these Fridays, or the last Wednesday of each month.”

The second branch of this grant is a monthly group social meal for any Indigenous Elder. Compassionate Neighbours is co-hosting this with Skwah First Nation on the last Thursday of each month, with grant funding from UWBC. Any interested senior, potential volunteer or an Indigenous Elder can contact me at neighbourhealth@gmail.com or 604-798-2023 for further information.