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Losing Meals on Wheels in Peters would be a travesty

5 min read

Peters Township council and Peters Township Meals on Wheels are currently involved in a dispute over the occupancy of the upper floor of the fire hall, now currently occupied by PT MOW. The MOW lease expires at the end of 2017. Council wants MOW to vacate now so they may expand the fire department for more storage, offices and training. There is ample property around the fire hall to add a facility that would accommodate those purposes. As long time residents of Peters Township, we have watched Peters grow from a farming community to what we see today. Years ago, sheep grazed along Route 19 and children did not move away to find jobs, but stayed and worked close home so they could take care of parents as they grew older.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. The sheep are now replaced by car dealerships, pizza shops and pharmacies. Now, more than ever, we still need to be a caring community. The people who volunteer their time for Meals on Wheels are just that. We want to help the senior citizens who need us most, whether they are residents of Peters or not. We also want a modern, up to date fire department to accommodate the needs of a still-growing township. We certainly honor and respect our firemen for the brave and often dangerous job they do. We are asking our municipal board members to seek some type of compromise and not a “winner take all” stance.

Council has expressed concern about a traffic jam at the fire department if (and that’s a big if) MOW would ever grow from feeding 200 people a day to 400. If just one council member would take the time to ride along with a driver he/she would see that it only takes 12 drivers to deliver 200 meals. We find it difficult to believe that the addition of 12 more vehicles would constitute a traffic jam. Maybe they should be more concerned about the traffic at Peters Township High School (across the street from the fire hall) at 7 in the morning and 2:15 in the afternoon when all the PTHS students who don’t ride the buses we pay for are transported by parents or drive their own cars. Hopefully, we never need our firemen at those times of the day. MOW is never involved in this traffic nightmare because we deliver meals starting at 10:30 am. Peters council says that they have tried very hard to accommodate MOW. As long time volunteers of MOW, we don’t see much in the way of assistance other than the fact that we have a reduced rent of $4,000 per month. One council member suggested the roof repair done this year was for MOW benefit. Since the township is the landlord of the building, is it not their responsibility to maintain the fire hall regardless of who the tenants might be? Only one member of council has ever visited our kitchen and none has ever volunteered to go along with a driver to see the people that we are no longer going to be able to feed. They seem to be concerned that we only serve about 60 people in Peters Township and the majority of our clients are out of the area. Our benefactor, Centimark, paid over half a million dollars to renovate and install a modern kitchen on the upper floor of the fire hall. They are located in Cecil, not Peters. As a business decision, throwing this investment away would be irresponsible. Other smaller MOW have closed because of a lack of funding and we now provide meals to some of their clients. Thanks to Cecil’s Centimark, we do not have that problem. The service we provide is one that many people cannot live without. If we are forced to move to a smaller facility, we may be only able to support those seniors in Peters. The rest would be thrown under the proverbial bus. This would be a travesty. They are not numbers, but real people in need. We believe that Peters Township is still a caring community and that if council would make a honest effort to get up out of their chairs and take a closer look at what we do and who we feed they might be more willing to come up with a compromise that would satisfy both parties.

Especially at this time of year, many good people feel even better when they can write a check to a favorite charity. They can only hope that the bulk of their money doesn’t go for “administrative expenses.” At MOW, that is not a concern. We are as hands-on as it gets. And yes, this is personal. The previous two generations of our families were clients (one lived in Nottingham Twp., one in Canonsburg and one in Peters). This is why we volunteer our time there.

George & Diane Bushmire

Peters Township

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