NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Aging Projects Inc. Executive Director Charles Johnston explained that the organization is in charge of government programs to be sure seniors are well-fed.
The home version is Meals on Wheels, the congregate version is Friendship Meals and he is proud of progress being made to better compensate those who are preparing those meals.
"I'm really happy to say that Oct. 1 started the increase of wages," Johnston said. "In some cases, our lowest paid staff went up by almost 30%. That doesn't necessarily speak highly on us, but I'm excited to finally have solved or at least begun to solve that problem, because our retention had not been good. Since I've been here, we've probably rolled through 14-16 staff members just because of one reason or another. When you're targeting a lower wage demographic, it's hard to get consistent employees."
The hope is that the additional compensation can give those who get 1/3 of their daily nutrition from the program a better product.
"Outside of the moral issue of underpaying people, which I don't favor at all, being able to offer better wages equals being able to get better staff people equals being able to have more consistent service and so it all lines up to get to the end product for our participants and consumers, where the meals that they receive is a better quality."
According to the Administration for Community Living, Nutrition is a primary prevention, risk reduction or treatment modality for many of the most common chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.
If you'd like to find out more about how you can help Meals on Wheels or Friendship Meals, go online to https://www.agingprojectsks.org/.
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