FEATURE: Carrick-on-Suir volunteers serve up nourishing meals and vital social contact

Every week 200 dinners are cooked by Carrick-on-Suir Meals Assistance Services volunteers in Carrickbeg Community Centre’s gleaming, stainless steel kitchen before they are whisked off to the homes of mostly elderly people.

Benny and Debbie Cooney are the husband and wife team at the centre of operations in the kitchen arriving often as early as 7am to prepare and cook about 40 meals with other volunteers for collection and distribution.

When The Nationalist visits them just after 12.30pm one Thursday all the drivers have been dispatched with their culinary cargoes and the couple are finishing cleaning the kitchen after another hectic morning.

The Meals Assistance Services kitchen is named after Debbie’s late father John Stuart, who was a Defence Forces chef and well known in Carrick-on-Suir for his catering work and voluntary work. Debbie and Benny assisted John with his catering so they are ideally suited to their roles in the not-for-profit voluntary organisation.

They are among over 30 volunteers who help run Carrick Meals Assistance Services.

Between five and seven people work in the kitchen preparing and cooking from Monday to Friday and 17 volunteer drivers deliver the meals to clients on a rota basis.

Others help with food shopping, organising the meals and deliveries diary and working as committee officers.

Twice a week the dinner deliveries extend beyond the town boundary to clients in rural communities such as Ballyneale, Ninemilehouse, Ahenny, Windgap and Mothel.

“You pay €7 for a two-course meal of either soup and dinner or dinner and dessert,” explains Debbie who developed her great organisational skills in her former logistics job at a residential firm.

“The price doesn’t quite cover the cost of producing the meals but fundraising throughout the year helps us to keep it down.”
Homemade vegetable soup, roast pork, green beans, turnip, potatoes and apple sauce are among the mouth watering food on the menu that day while supreme of chicken stew was the special the previous day.

Desserts are the only part of the meal not made in-house and are purchased in local stores and bakeries.

Carrick-on-Suir Meals Assistance Services volunteers Siobhán O’Neill, Benny Cooney, Debbie Cooney, Billy Doherty and Samantha Murphy pictured in Carrickbeg Community Centre kitchen. Picture Anne Marie Magorrian

Debbie and Benny point out their relationship with clients is more than just cooking a nourishing meal.

Benny, who is a retired fireman, says the community centre kitchen is like a Men’s Shed, a place their clients are welcome to come in for a chat when they call to pay for dinners.

Debbie agrees: “I want them to be able to have a chat even just standing in the doorway. Sometimes we would just say to them would you like a cup of tea.”

They are also in regular phone contact with clients over dinner orders and cancellations.

“Some just ring me for the chat,” says Debbie.

“They pretend they are ringing me for something else. I could be on the phone 40 minutes with them telling me about all that’s going on with them. That link between clients and ourselves is absolutely vital.”

Sineád Blackmore, volunteer driver with Carrick Meals Assistance Services, packs her culinary cargo for delivery to clients.

And Carrick Meals Assistance Services made sure their clients weren’t without their regular Friday meal during the recent Storm Éowyn.

When it was flagged as a Red Weather Alert, Benny, Debbie and their fellow volunteers swung into action and cooked two days worth of dinners the morning before the storm and delivered them to their clients.

Indeed, the storm and week of snow and ice earlier in January prompted the group to draw up an emergency protocol for the meals service for any future bad weather events.

The couple both volunteered with the old Carrick-on-Suir Meals on Wheels service while in secondary school.

When a call-out was made for volunteers to join the Carrick Meals Assistance Services that replaced the Meals on Wheels group after it disbanded a few years ago, Debbie put herself forward and became treasurer.

She says the new service initially delivered meals purchased from local restaurants. When the Covid-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close, the dinners were cooked for a time in Carrick-on-Suir Golf Club’s kitchen but this option proved too expensive.

Debbie went home to Benny and told him she was going to try cooking the meals and signed him up to help.

“I had no choice, it was either that or lead a life of misery,” he jokes. “But I enjoy it in fairness; I have always enjoyed cooking.”

Sheila Power, who rents the community centre for the local scouts troop, agreed to allow the Meals Assistance Services use the centre’s kitchen for the remainder of the pandemic and it is now the group’s permanent base.

Debbie loves the kitchen that was upgraded for the Meals Assistance Services thanks to €30,000 fundraised by the local community.

She paid tribute to the people of Carrick-on-Suir for rallying behind the fundraising campaign.

“They were absolutely brilliant running everything from discos to draws. I am always on the paper and Facebook accepting donations.”

She is as “proud as punch” of what Carrick Meals Assistance Services’ volunteers have achieved. “It’s a real team effort,” she says.

READ NEXT: Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society announces date tickets for The Addams Family go on sale