MONTREAL -- With seniors being told not to leave their homes, a new program in NDG is trying to make grocery delivery a little easier.
The Provigo located on Sherbrooke and Cavendish, along with help from Concordia University's ACT Program and a team of volunteers have teamed up under the name Grocery Response NDG to ensure elder residents are still receiving their groceries. Thus far Grocery Reponse NDG has made 50 deliveries and is now open to all seniors over the age of 70 in NDG.
“The rest of us are able to get out to the store. We're relatively healthy,” said Provigo employee Lorraine Fyfe. “They're the ones I think that are really at risk. They're fragile and they need us and why shouldn't we all come together and take care of them.”
Gerry Lafferty of the New Hope Seniors Centre said English-speaking seniors are particularly at risk.
“Within the Anglophone community, seniors are much more isolated because their families, their kids and grandchildren have moved out of province,” he said. “They're very, very alone and without our three-day-a-week delivery, nobody would be visiting or talking to these people.”
Seniors can call in their orders or reach the group online. Volunteers have been manning the phones, taking orders and checking in on seniors flagged as in need of support or even just some human contact.
“In my conversations with them, a lot of them tell you a little bit about their lives and they've been through a lot,” said volunteer Mirian Esseghaier. “So they're tough and they're going to make it through
and I'm just glad this is just a small thing to help them out.”
