Every morning around 11am, 91-year-old Hsu Chu Hui-ju (
But apart from receiving a subsidized lunchbox like many other elderly residents in the borough, Hsu Chu has another mission: working as a volunteer to distribute this daily fare.
"The office needs volunteers, and I can still walk and move. This is a small thing I can do to help," said Hsu Chu, who is also known as the "lunchbox chief" in her neighborhood.
PHOTO: MO YAN-CHIH, TAIPEI TIMES
Without help from volunteers like Hsu Chu and support from borough warden Fang Ho-sheng (
Fang, who started the program, said seniors make up more than 17 percent of the borough's residents. The borough provides a variety of elderly care services, such as the lunch program, to help its elderly residents, Fang said.
"I used to put senior residents who lived alone in nursing homes, but found out they soon lose their ability to get around and do things," he said. "So I began this lunchbox delivery program as a care service to allow them to stay in the community."
According to Ministry of the Interior figures, senior citizens last year made up around 10 percent of the nation's population.
By 2018, Taiwan is expected to develop from an "aging society" into an "aged society," in which the ratio of people aged 65 years and older is greater than 14 percent of the population.
As part of the elderly care system, the ministry provides in-home care and day-care services. The Taipei City Government's Social Welfare Department, on the other hand, has been promoting meal-delivery programs for seniors who live alone.
There are 824 people signed up for the meal-delivery service. This is provided by 22 community organizations such as the Zhongqin Borough group. With Taipei's elderly population rising rapidly, however, demand supply is increasingly outstripping demand.
Fang began the program with the idea that good nutrition is a fundamental part of caring for the elderly. He teamed up with Taipei Hoping Hospital to provide lunches specially designed for the elderly.
Senior citizens who live alone can order a lunchbox Monday through Friday for only NT$20.
Government subsidies cover only half of the lunchbox program, Fang said. The program relies heavily on volunteers, and Fang himself contributes about NT$400,000 each year out of his own pocket.
So far the program has benefited more than 40 residents of Zhongqin Borough. Fang said the improvement in both their physical and mental lives has encouraged him to extend the program: he hopes to serve more than 100 seniors in Zhongzheng District.
"The program seems like a simple service, but we earn the senior citizens' trust with it, and it's much easier to take care of the elderly when they eat healthily and regularly," Fang told the Taipei Times.
The borough is always bustling around lunch time. Even before the volunteers return from the hospital with the food, elderly residents are already assembled in the borough office, chatting or reading newspapers as they wait for their lunch.
Volunteers deliver lunchboxes to the homes of those who are ill.
"It's good. The food is good, and we all come here to chat and pick up a lunchbox. I am qualified to live in the city's public nursing home, but I don't want to live there. It's more fun living here," Hsu Chu said.
The program not only takes care of the residents' physical health, it helps address their loneliness.
"For many senior citizens who live alone, lunchtime may be their only chance all day to talk to other people," said Lung Kuei-ying (
A full-time housewife, Lung has ridden her bicycle to deliver meals for more than a year.
"I feel great seeing their smiles when they get the lunchboxes from me. And it gives me a sense of responsibility. They actually wait for my visit every day," she said.
Eighty-five-year-old Tung Tsai-pao (
"It's great to see her. She's very nice to me, and I am satisfied with the food, too," she said as she ushered Lung into her small home.
Tung's son lives next door, but seldom visits her. Without the program, Tung said, she would probably go hungry.
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