What Are You Doing With Your Free Block?

 

During his free block on Fridays of winter trimester, Dallas Aho ’07 wasn’t doing his homework and he wasn’t chillin’ in the Estabrook. He was driving around Wolfeboro delivering meals – Meals on Wheels.

Aho first became familiar with Meals on Wheels this past summer in his hometown of Vancouver, Washington. Meals on Wheels is a non-profit group that prepares nutritious meals for people who are unable to prepare their own meals.

Dallas Aho and his Meals on Wheels wheels.

“This summer I helped out at a place that delivered Meals on Wheels, but I wasn’t old enough to be a driver so I rode along on a route. Then one day during my free block in Wolfeboro a car drove past me with a Meals on Wheels sign. I thought that it would be a good community service project – since I was now 18, had a car, and a free block during lunch time.”

And so on Fridays Aho would drive the 2/10s of a mile to local Huggins Hospital where the meals were prepared. He’d load them in his SUV and head out to make his deliveries. “On the Wolfeboro route, there are usually about 10 meals. At the drop-off it’s really just a quick exchange of a meal, a smile, and a greeting.”

But Aho remembers one of his delivery stops fondly. “One of my most amazing experiences with Meals on Wheels was when I got to deliver to Ms. Pollini. ... Inside her home can be found a Brewster quilt on the rocking chair. When I asked her about the different Brewster items in her home, she told me that she graduated with the class of ‘34. To me it was really cool to think that she and I had walked the same halls and were part of something powerful. ... It was the idea that we both developed strong bonds and had meaningful experiences in the very same place 73 years apart.”