Seniors Party Bus adapts to COVID-19 with a Christmas Dinner Drop Off (Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows)

In the past, Community Services' (Maple Ridge) Active Aging Program, aka Seniors Party Bus, has held a Christmas dinner for seniors in their program and community. Unfortunately, the Active Aging team was not able to do that this year due to COVID-19, which was very upsetting to seniors as the participants haven't been able to do a group outing since the pandemic began. 

"Given the increasing isolation of seniors during this time, we decided that we still wanted seniors to have their turkey dinner and gift bag so we partnered with the Salvation Army and Meadow Ridge Rotary. When we started calling seniors to let them know what we were doing, some were surprised, and some broke down into tears, as they had nothing else to look forward to," says Joanne Leginus, Director of Administration and Services, Community Services BC. 

On the afternoon of December 24^th, 2020, the Active Aging team organized routes for 35 volunteers (along with their families and kids) to deliver 286 Turkey dinners and Christmas gift bags to seniors in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. Since then, the team has received many phone calls from seniors thanking them for this generous. 

Photos of the Active Aging Team handing out meals and gift bags to the volunteers to deliver: