Q&A with Wasilla Area Seniors CEO discussing virtual and in person hybrid Miles for Meals 5K

WASILLA— Wasilla Area Seniors is hosting a virtual and in person Miles for Meals 5K Run, Walk and Roll fundraiser this year to support their efforts feeding their residents year round. Wasilla Area Seniors CEO Chuck Foster discussed the event.

Q: What can you tell me about the Miles for Meals program?

“Miles for Meals is our major fundraiser for our Senior Nutrition Program, in the term that we use it involves our Meals on Wheels in the Mat-Su Valley and also our meals served in the senior centers in Wasilla and in Mid-Valley, in Houston. We serve quite a few meals in the seniors centers. With rising rates of people coming into the dining room, we’re probably serving 60 meals a day. That’s nowhere near where it was pre-COVID, but that’s quite a few more meals than we were serving just a month ago. So, seniors are returning to the dining room nicely. We’re serving most of our meals as Meals on Wheels, that’s easily 300 meals a day. So, in order to pay for that, we have to have some fundraisers so that we can continue the service… We need more money than we raised last year, which was a pure virtual event… because we’re serving more seniors this year than last year.”

Q: What’s that look like this year?

We started off our Miles for Meals event with a silent auction from the middle of May to the beginning of June. We hoped to raise 10,000 with that. We raised about 11,000. So we’re pleased that we met our goal… Now, starting with the first of June through the 26th of June we are in the virtual phase. So this is a hybrid event. It’s always been a 5K Fun Run, run, walk, roll… We have that time for people to do it at their own pace… In preparation for that run, either in person or virtual, we ask all of our registered runners to go out to their friends, their families, to people they meet on the street and ask them to sponsor them. In past years, that was the major way that we brought in funds… Because people are a lot more socially distant event still, we find that a lot of folks will call the people that they know and just ask them to come to our website and make a donation in their name.”

Q: What about the in person event?

“For people that are doing things in person on Saturday, we’ll have folks gathered at the Wasilla senior center campus and we’ll go for that morning run, walk, roll. We’ll have some snacks afterwards. Seniors like to always come out and mingle and chat with the folks and a lot of families show up. It’s just a really good morning out here.”

Q: How are things going in general at WASI?

“Generally, things are looking up. It turns out that it’s a lot of work coming out of a COVID restricted environment. We’ve been doing this for a long time. We’ve been open for a long time. We see, especially as summer is coming around, seniors are a lot more willing to be in the same room with a lot of other people. We still ask people to wash their hands when they come into the senior center. We ask them to not come in if they have any symptoms of any kind.”

Those interested in registering for the 5K or making a donation can find out more by stopping by WASI during normal business hours, calling 907-376-3104, emailing email marlenem@alaskaseniors.com, or visiting wasillaseniors.com.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com