Tom and Harriet Dillon have been volunteers with Meals on Wheels for 19 years

Tom and Harriet Dillon have been volunteers with Meals on Wheels for 19 years

COEUR d’ALENE — Harriet Dillon can laugh about it now.

She fell once on a doorstep as she made a Meals on Wheels delivery.

“I was so embarrassed, honest to Pete laying there, hit my head on his screen door,” she said, smiling. “I think I landed on his milk because a couple of them started leaking.”

The client on the receiving end found it a good time to crack a joke.

“The last time a woman fell for me, that was 67 years ago, and she’s still here,” he said, chuckling.

Dillon was fine, physically, but the client offered to come out to the car each week to get his meals from then on.

“I’ll take them so you don’t have to come up the steps,” he said.

Ouch.

Harriet and husband Tom have many such stories that come with volunteering to deliver Meals on Wheels for 19 years.

It’s part of what keeps them coming to the Lake City Center every Friday morning at 9:30 for a cup of “mud,” as Harriet says, and then organize their meals before heading out on two routes to help homebound and disabled seniors 60 and older in Coeur d’Alene.

“We like to get here early and pack our own food,” she said.

It’s like clockwork: Leave at 10:30, make nearly 20 stops with hot and fresh meals — could be meatloaf, salmon, pasta, ham, chicken fried steak and barbecued pork ribs — for that day, and frozen, too, done by noon and back at the center.

“You’re constantly going for an hour and a half,” she said.

And they have not missed a day of volunteering throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, said Bob Small, Lake City Center director.

“This couple has given their heart and soul to our Coeur d’Alene community,” he said.

Small described the Dillons as “phenomenal. They never complain. You can always count on them. They give 110 percent.”

Tom Dillon said it’s easy to explain why they do what they do.

“For many of these people, it’s the only meal they’re going to get each day,” he said. “They depend on you to deliver the food to them.”

Harriet said it feels good to be out there, bringing not just food, but encouragement, as well.

“It’s something you look forward to,” she said.

Meals on Wheels, federally funded through the Older Americans Act, delivers about 650 fresh and frozen meals a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday around Kootenai County.

Each client gets seven meals a week.

It was Harriet who first got involved in delivering meals shortly after she and Tom moved to Coeur d’Alene in 1999, from Alaska, where he worked for the Department of Corrections.

Later, Tom came on board and they formed a formidable delivery team. Initially, they volunteered three days a week, and later, settled for Fridays only.

“He was the driver and I was the runner. It’s been like that ever since he started,” Harriet said.

Harriet gets to know the clients. She doesn’t just drop off the meals. She makes sure the clients are OK, asks if they need anything, and keeps them company for a few minutes.

She refers to one client as “the sweetest little thing you ever did see.”

“These people don’t see many people, so when you get there with their food, they’re dying to talk to somebody,” she said.

Then, it’s time to hustle.

“I run back to the car and away we go,” she said.

It’s hard to remember the names, she said, but the faces stay with her. People change, some quickly, as they age.

“So many have passed since we started,” Harriet said.

When they get their client list on Fridays, there will be new names, and some familiar ones no longer on it.

“Somebody’s gone and somebody’s added,” Harriet said.

Cathy South, Meals on Wheels coordinator, oversees about 50 volunteers. She said the Dillons are fiercely protective of their clients and their routes.

“They do two routes every Friday,” she said. “They told me if I take one route away, they’ll quit.”

Harriet nods and smiles at that comment.

“It’s bad enough she keeps taking people off our route, much less take a route away,” she said.

Tom has also been volunteering for the past 18 years with the Tax-Aide Program sponsored by Lake City Center, and files about 300 free tax returns each year.

Harriet has cleaned for seniors since 2002, but not on Fridays.

“This has always been Friday,” she said as she prepared to make deliveries. “Our Friday starts with doing meals first. It’s making these people happy, giving them somebody to look forward to seeing every week.”