A Full Belly for the Whole Family

The doorbell rang on Cindy Beard's trailer, and Sydney, her 9-year-old Australian Shepherd, barked like crazy. Beard, 70 years old, knew that 9:50 on a weekday morning meant Meals on Wheels delivering her hot lunch. But after a year and half of the same routine, Sydney was still diligently fulfilling her duties as bodyguard, yapping loudly while Beard slowly shuffled toward the door with the help of a cane.

When Beard greeted Teofilo Tamboaon, her Meals on Wheels driver, he handed her a tray with favorite foods—tuna salad on a bed of lettuce, vegetables, and a cookie. He spent a few minutes playing with Sydney, replacing the rope around her neck with a proper leash and collar he'd brought over, much to Beard's joy. Since she was homebound and completely alone, too frail to from a stroke and scoliosis leave her Sacramento, California home more than once a week, she shared everything with Sydney—even her own food.

Beard settled into the living room couch and turned on Animal Planet, balancing the Meals on Wheels tray on her lap. She looked forward to “salad days” in particular, but when she gazed down into Sydney 's soft dark eyes and knew that her pet was hungry, too, Beard could only pick at her white plastic tray, saving a little something from each section. She would only eat one other meal that day, and it would be something cold and small, maybe cottage cheese and fruit. Then, making the ultimate sacrifice—even if her own stomach was still rumbling—Beard leant down and placed the tray on the floor beside her feet for Sydney to lick clean. But before Tamboaon arrived to check on her the following morning, Beard had always removed the licked-clean tray.

However, other seniors who shared food with pets were not as quick to hide their trays, and Meals on Wheels drivers got used to finding plate after plate licked clean by hungry pets. Nearly half of the1,500 seniors fed by the Sacramento branch have pets, and a significant number of them were, like Beard, sharing what precious little food they had.

Then last May, everything changed for her and Sydney, because Meals on Wheels reached out to hungry people as well as their pets. They started a program called Pets Eat Too, which provides free cat or dog food along with the owners' meals—and no one's seen a licked plate since.

“For seniors who feel responsible to share their meals with their pet because they don't have enough money to buy pet food, or seniors who are spending precious money for food on pet food, now they don't have to,” says Janine Brown, the program director.

A few years ago, Cindy Beard wasn't worried about how she'd put food on the table—or in the bowl—of her beloved dog. Though she'd just separated from her husband and wasn't financially supported, she got a part-time receptionist job, which covered the rent on her trailer, her car payments, and plenty of food for her and Sydney. But on a dark November night in 2004, driving [to/from TK], she had a stroke and crashed her car. At the same time, pain from her scoliosis made it nearly impossible for her to walk or stand for any significant amount of time. She started using a cane, and had to quit her job for good. With one of her sons deceased and the other estranged, she had no one to lean on—and without that extra money, Beard started to worry. Allowing herself to go to bed hungry was one thing, but to not provide for Sydney , the love of her life, the pet she refers to as her daughter ? She knew she would sacrifice whatever it took.

That sacrifice meant still buying Sydney the good brand of dog food, even if she had to feed her less of it. It meant Beard lived off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for three meals a day, every day of the week. She stretched her Social Security checks—her only income—trying to make something out of nothing. She got rid of her car. She went off her medications because she could no longer afford them. She spent $45 a week on groceries, buying only what she absolutely needed. Even though she thought she might starve to death, she still spent $25 a month on Sydney 's pet food. Through sandwich after sandwich and what would become a long and painful divorce, she always had Sydney —her companionship and security, the reason she could still sleep at night.

“She is my beacon in the night,” she says. “She is my lifeguard.”

Beard hadn't realized how unsteady on her feet she was without her medications. Walking outside of her trailer one day, she took not even ten steps before falling into the street in front of her home. Unable to get up, she lay waiting for someone to see her. Then, she saw it: a garbage truck, barreling right at her. Despite the pain, she managed to frantically wave her arms, and the driver stopped just in time. The driver called to a woman across the street to help move Beard. The woman happened to be delivering Meals on Wheels to a neighbor, and immediately asked Beard about her falls and her inability to stand and cook; Beard started receiving hot Meals on Wheels just days later.

Nearly a quarter of Meals on Wheels' clients are not even as lucky as Beard; for 350 seniors, the five delivered meals a week may be the only food they eat all week. So while an average person has 21 meals in a week—Beard has 14—these seniors only eat five, and even that meager amount is often shared with their pets. Janine Brown, the program director, knew that people sharing food with their pets was an immense challenge, but with 200 people on the Meals on Wheels waiting list, they didn't yet have the resources to provide for both people and pets.

The organization first got wind of the food-sharing problem when delivery drivers came to collect the previous day's meal trays, and began noticing the plastic trays outside on porches. They were often placed on the floor beside water bowls, licked clean. But with no way to help, the drivers just collected the trays and petted the dog or cat on the head, leaving seniors to spend precious grocery money on pet food or to share their one meal a day.

But that was then, before the Pets Eat Too program ensured that Meals on Wheels seniors would never need to share food again. The volunteers brainstormed about how to deliver free pet food. Initially, they collected broken or outdated bags of food from pet supply stores. They distributed about 1,000 lbs. of pet food a month, but it didn't even begin to meet the need of hungry pets, which was greater than they ever imagined.

With the influx of people who needed help and their limited resources, the project often ran out of food, and two months in a row went by where they had no cat food at all. The project seemed like it would never get off the ground.

Then, in May of 2005, Meals on Wheels got a call from Royal Canin, a French pet food company, who heard about the program and wanted to help by donating 65,000 lbs. of food, enough to meet their need for at least a year. It was so much pet food that the Meals on Wheels chapter in Sacramento can now provide for similar programs in seven neighboring counties.

Nationally, Meals on Wheels doesn't keep records on which of their 4,500 branches run pet food programs, but CEO Enid Borden estimates twenty percent.

“All of our programs would probably like to do something like this, but it's a matter of resources,” she says. “It's our job to provide nourishment to the household, and pets are part of that household.”

These days, Beard doesn't have to share her food to know Sydney is provided for. Today Beard sits on the couch with the Meals on Wheels tray on her lap—and now she can finish whatever she wants. Though Sydney 's bowl of kibble is in the kitchen, she constantly wants to be near Beard, so she walks into the kitchen, bites a mouthful of food, and walks back into the living room so she can stand beside her owner. After she gulps that down, it's back to the kitchen for another mouthful, and another short walk back to Beard. It seems they agree—dinner just tastes better when they can eat together.

Beard still lives meekly on two meals a day. But with free food for Sydney , she can now put the $25 a month she was spending on pet food toward her own sustenance. In fact, Beard is so appreciative that she plans to write thank-you notes to both Meals on Wheels and the pet food company.

“It's like manna from heaven. Literally, it is food from heaven for me and the dog. It makes all the difference, and I'm grateful.”