IT began as just simple home-cooked meals served up and shared from the kitchen of a house that stood on Foote Lane in 1956.
But on Saturday, May 21, 2022, Ipswich Meals on Wheels celebrated its 66th birthday with free meals for its 200+ clients across four branches, cooked in their own two kitchens, said Ipswich manager Bec Dakin.
And the demand for their services has shown no signs of easing over the decades nor is it likely to. It can only grow.
“That’s been driven by the government who’ve hopefully identified that there are people wanting to stay in their homes by themselves or with their partners for as long as they can,” Dakin said of the constant demand.
“But to be able to do that, sometimes they do need assistance and that’s where MoW steps in so they’re able to be more independent, stay at home for longer and they get to (socialise) with us so there’s definitely a need for that; (it’s) definitely increasing.
And as surely as demand for their services grows, so too does the need for volunteers, and younger ones at that
“We’ll never say no to a volunteer.
“Just in Ipswich itself, every day, we would have 40 volunteers that need to get those meals out to our clients so that’s a lot of people every day,” Dakin points out.
