From Hospital Bed to Kitchen Table

Partners in health care can be found in some surprising places: a retiree who devotes one day a week to visiting seniors and delivering meals; a chef who has found her calling cooking hundreds of meals for the community; volunteers who help coordinate, prepare and pack dinners.

Each plays a role in caring for people like Grace, an 84-year-old woman who was discharged from Langley Memorial Hospital after a fall. She returned home with a walker, a list of medications and no one to help with home care, fill her fridge or ensure her safety.

Thanks to the partnership between Langley Meals on Wheels (LMOW) and Langley Community Health & Hospital Foundation’s Whatever It Takes Fund, Grace began receiving meals delivered to her door within 24 hours of her discharge.

For the next two weeks, LMOW volunteers checked in to encourage her and watch for signs of struggle. Through communication with Grace’s daughter, who lives out of province, the organization helped arrange home care services, provided support and ensured her follow-up care didn’t fall through the cracks.

Driven by the principle that food is medicine, the Foundation expanded its partnership with Langley Meals on Wheels throughout 2024-25, attracting donors to the Whatever It Takes Fund.

With donor funding, the Whatever It Takes Fund gives the hospital’s social work team access to resources that improve their ability to support patients as they transition from hospital back to the community. This helps set them up for recovery and prevents hospital re-admission.

“The Foundation’s support for our Home from the Hospital program creates a bridge between discharge and recovery, when people are at their most vulnerable,” says Shannon Woykin, Executive Director of Langley Meals on Wheels.

Nutrition as Fuel for a Healthy Community
According to a study from the University of Toronto, adults living in food-insecure households are more likely to suffer from infectious diseases, oral health problems, injury and chronic conditions including depression, anxiety disorders, heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, back problems and chronic pain.

Those who are food-insecure (struggling to access meals that sustain their physical and mental health) are also more likely to be admitted for treatment of respiratory disease, endocrine-metabolic system diseases and mental disorders, the study noted.

After two weeks of post-discharge meals through Home from the Hospital, LMOW’s program for discharged patients assesses whether clients need continued meal delivery. Donors to the Whatever It Takes program help fill the gap in funding for subsidized meals.

In 2024, the program served 65,538 meals to Langley residents - a 22 per cent increase over the year. LMOW supported 203 individuals through the Home from the Hospital program.

“This funding allows us to do more than deliver meals. It helps us keep people connected to their community, those who are frail, isolated or without family,” says Shannon.

“Together with the Foundation, we’re building a care network that extends beyond hospital walls and into the homes of those who need it.”