ROCKPORT – The Wave Café at Camden Hills Regional High School was abuzz with Jazz Thursday, March 23, as bands from Belfast, Camden Rockport Middle School, Camden Hills Regional High School and MoJO (Mondaynite Jazz Orchestra) entertained guests in a benefit that helped Meals on Wheels program for Knox County.

Liz Schuh, executive director for the Methodist Conference Home in Rockland explained the Meals on Wheels program.

"MCH has been doing Meals on Wheels in Knox County for over 40 years," she said. "People need the service and I'm sure people have heard because the program is in the news even more lately. Government funding has never kept pace with the cost of a meal."

Schuh said the actual cost of preparing a meal is $8.

"To prepare a meal, the staff time, the food and delivery actually costs over $8 and the government funding we receive is only $2.50 per meal," she said. "It's not an income based program and recipients are asked to make a donation to the meals if they are able to do that."

Schuh said last year the program averaged $1.19 per recipient.

"We have to make up that difference in the $8 it costs us to make the meal," she said. "The $2.50 from the government and the $1.19 from recipient funding, it's these community events we do to help make up the difference in that short fall."

Schuh commented on rumors that the Trump Administration is looking to wipe out Meals on Wheels funding all together.

"Statement have been made that the program hasn't proven to be beneficial to people," she said. "The programs have been proven to be beneficial to people. Both from a nutritional stand point, but also the interaction with the volunteer who delivers the meal. Sometimes these might be the only people an individual sees on a given day. It's that human contact as well as the meal itself."

Schuh said they have five or six routes in Knox County and they deliver over 100 meals per day, Monday through Friday.

"We don't have a waiting list," she said. "We have been very fortunate not to have to do that, so anyone who needs a meal we are able to get them that meal as soon as possible."

The Belfast High School Jazz Combo is under the direction of Patrick Munson.

Camden Rockport Middle School Jazz 1 Band is under the direction of Craig Ouellette. Ouellette also directed the Mondaynte Jazz Orchestra.

CHRHS Jazz Band is under the direction of Nancy Rowe.

Meals on Wheels is part of the MCH safety net of services which provides affordable housing and aging in place services designed to keep seniors and people with disabilities healthy and living in their own homes.

A recent study showed that one year of Meals on Wheels costs the same amount as six days in a nursing home or just one day in a hospital.