The Open Hand Project: Serving HIV-positive people with need
Author’s note: This piece was published over a decade ago in a publication of the Unitarian Universalist Church. I find it appropriate now because October is World AIDS Awareness Month.
The Open Hand Project is described by its manager, Chris Chimera, as a Meals-on-Wheels serving HIV-positive people with need. People are considered with need, she says, “If they have an illness which keeps them from shopping, cooking, and eating properly.” The project assists about 130 people per day, bringing them both lunch and dinner. On Saturday it brings two lunches and two dinners to every person because it doesn’t operate on Sunday.
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church provides space for Open Hand and picks up its utility costs. There is no fee at all to the people served. Sixty percent of Open Hand is funded by private donations, twenty percent by the community, and the rest comes from foundation or government grants. Open Hand has been in operation since September ‘88 and serves the city of Atlanta within the perimeter.
The project has about 150 active volunteers. On any typical day there are five volunteers working in the kitchen, five packing the meals, one doing office work, and fourteen driving to the clients and delivering the meals to them.
Steven Woods, kitchen manager, is proud of the meals Open Hand provides: “We try to provide balanced meals for them and we do a meal that’s comparable to any restaurant’s menu.” A typical Open Hand lunch might consist of a Reuben sandwich and potato salad or beef barley soup with a salad and crackers while a dinner might be a grilled flank steak with rice and stir-fried vegetables. Since HIV is a syndrome rather than a specific disease there aren’t any specific dietary requirements that apply to all HIV-positives. “Sometimes people who’ve had thrush in their mouths need bland foods,” Woods says, “Some people with Kaposi’s sarcoma can’t properly digest foods because of stomach problems so we prepare liquid diets for them.”
Open Hand delivers on fourteen routes, each of which has an average of eight or nine stops. “Each route takes about an hour and a half to cover,” according to delivery coordinator Pat Hannah, “And we need a computer to work out the routes because there are an average of ten changes per day.” There are approximately eighty-four volunteer drivers altogether. “We have a different person every day,” Hannah says, “But we try to have our drivers work the same route week to week so they will get to know the people on their routes.
“We’re not Domino’s Pizza,” he continues, “For many of our clients the driver could be the only person they see all day long and that five minutes of human contact is as important as the food. The drivers come in here at 11:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday and the first thing they do is pack the packages of food into little bags. Some people use plastic grocery bags because if someone is not home they can leave it on their doorknob. Others use shopping bags like Macy’s paper bags with handles so they can fit six sets of meals in one.”
As anyone familiar with Unitarian Universalism’s tradition of service to the community would expect, many UUs volunteer for the Open Hand Project. Jean Levine is a UU who has been an Open Hand office worker since the beginning of the project. “When I came on there were no office systems in place so I had to develop client files,” she says, “I developed a certification system to certify that the people served were HIV-positive. I worked with a volunteer accountant on the bookkeeping system. We also had to get the papers together to get IRS tax exemptions.”
A retired federal government worker, Levine had previously worked with AID Atlanta and was taking a rest when she heard about Open Hand. She wanted to work in AIDS services and finds her job “rewarding because I answer the phones so I’m in contact with clients and I know how much they appreciate what we do, how good they say the meals are. They know the work is done by volunteers and they are very grateful.”
Another UU volunteer is Bob Davis, a consulting engineer who volunteers in food preparation and packaging. He works at Open Hand on Thursday mornings and spends about three hours on kitchen chores. He got involved in the project after he saw Rev. Joe Chancy’s letter about it in the Metro Ministry newsletter. “The type of packaging depends on the meal,” Davis says, “Lunch is a sandwich so it goes in a large plastic bag. A meatloaf with string beans and potatoes might go in a 3-part package. A bland meal, on the other hand, might only require a single-compartment package rather than a three compartment. A liquid diet is poured in a plastic container.”
“Normally there are three volunteers at a time working in packaging,” Davis continues, “and we have to get them done by 11:30am so the drivers can pick them up.”
UU and retired Georgia State professor John Ball is a driver. He is also on the Board of Metro Ministry where he first learned about the Open Hand project. He spends about an hour delivering meals every Tuesday. He very much enjoys the time he spends on it. “I see the people I deliver to and we chat briefly,” Ball says. “It is so refreshing to talk with them because they’re very appreciative. I haven’t met anybody who is hostile. The most amazing thing it that so many of them are so up-beat, so positive and cheerful even when they’re pretty sick.”
Of course, as in working with any group of people with life-threatening illnesses, there is sometimes a downside. “It hurts a lot when clients die. Sometimes we lose clients because they move away or back home. But other times you chat with them one day and soon after you learn they’ve died. That’s especially painful because you do get to know them.” On a more heartening subject he notes “I’ve had one person over a year, since I started deliver on my route, and he’s doing fine. It makes me feel good to know that.”
UU Arlene Wollmer volunteers for Open Hand twice weekly, working one day in food packaging and the other in delivery. “I help coordinate and package the meals and sometimes I help out in the kitchen, slicing tomatoes or washing lettuce if the cook needs help. The route I drive on is in Midtown and it’s easy for me to get around. I’ve gotten to know the people on the route.”
Retired from a family business, Wollmer started volunteering for Open Hand because “I had extra time to spend and I wanted to work for a cause that needs help.” She finds delivering and food packaging to be about equally difficult. “The route I deliver on has a lot of apartments so I have to walk up and down stairs a lot. In packaging we have to get so many meals together and work fast so both jobs are pretty physical.”
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Stumble It!
October 12th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Yep, that’s what we need.;more money spent per infected victim than on any other disease. Not to mention this is a disease contracted by inappropriate, and often deviant, behavior. Where does this leave smokers and IV drug users? Oh, I forgot, some folks in hollywood also have the disease and it is very important to the male homosexual community. More per capita spent on HIV than victims of heart attack, stroke, and cancer combined. The secondary benefit is to ensure this deadly infectious disease can be further spread to other innocent victims so we can maintain the misery or the money supply; take your pick.