You don’t just stumble upon Presque Isle, Maine. You come ‘round for a while. 

The town, with a population of more than 8,000, is the largest city in Aroostook County, which is teeming with gorgeous pine trees, farmland, wilderness and pastures. Much of the county’s 6,700 square miles touches the Canadian border, with New Brunswick to the east and Quebec to the north. 

Planes often descend through thick cloud cover, mist, and the gentle pattering of precipitation into the quaint Presque Isle International Airport. Jet Blue operates one outbound flight a day, close to the crack of dawn, into Newark Liberty International Airport.  

There’s an intentionality about coming here. 

People in Presque Isle move at a leisurely pace, savoring the tranquility and simplicity of rustic life: wide porches, patios, big-wheeled pick-up trucks, the vroom of dirt bikes, ATVs, the chorus of crickets, the distant echo of gunshots during hunting season and the perfume of the outdoors beckon.  

However, there’s a tension between the myth and nostalgia of living in a small town, where the notion of Main Street still resonates, and the reality.  

In Presque Isle, younger generations are gravitating closer to large urban areas. (Urbanization may pose the greatest threat to rural areas' survival.) 

Traditionally, young people played a significant role in harvesting potatoes — the dominant local crop — and had a stake in the local economy and the welfare of their families and community. They often raised their families close to their rural roots, too.  

But that’s all changing.  

The swelling outmigration in rural areas like Presque Isle means fewer children and grandchildren are stimulating economic growth through entrepreneurship or entering the local workforce. The consequences are smaller and older workforces; slower progress; less funding pouring into sustaining services due to a smaller tax base; fewer small businesses; less job creation; and weaker local economies.  

Efforts are underway to study ways to recruit and retain young professionals, and several industries are interested in increasing their regional presence. However, the local housing crisis has stalled this. In the next five years, 500 housing units are required to meet the need— a daunting goal. 

The trend also means fewer people to care for aging parents and grandparents, and more isolated aging populations.  

Twenty-five percent of the population is over 65, four percentage points higher than the state average. The local average is projected to increase to 40 percent by 2040. (Some parts of the county have already surpassed the 40 percent threshold.)  

Organizations like the Aroostook Agency on Aging, which administers various essential services to seniors across Aroostook County, including stewarding the local Meals on Wheels, are more vital than ever.  

Yet, as the need across the county increases, dwindling resources, low volunteer numbers and the logistical hurdles of traversing a massive service area limit their reach and impact.  

“The vastness of the geographical area is very challenging,” Community Resource Specialist Tim Cook says.  

Tim works intimately with 100 seniors in the county, many of whom are Meals on Wheels recipients and receive six-month assessments. He regularly spends two to three hours roundtrip to visit a single client … many places are 40 minutes apart.  

The distances make his work and the work of the agency’s volunteers more difficult. Seniors in more populated areas receive weekly deliveries, while others receive biweekly meals that include two weeks' worth of frozen meals they can quickly reheat. It’s the only way to navigate an unrelenting resource, workforce deficiency and an organizational infrastructure never intended to serve an aging population of this magnitude. 

In addition, there are a few opportunities to subcontract services, which are regular occurrences in more urban areas. 

To understand the root cause of the problem, you have to go back four years.  

A BRAVE NEW WORLD 

“The pandemic changed everything,” Tim says.  

Before the pandemic, only homebound seniors were eligible for meal delivery. Then, given the heightened threat to their health from exposure to the COVID-19 virus, the criteria expanded to include anyone over 60.  

Notably, 80 percent of the people who joined the service rolls during the COVID-19 pandemic were eligible under previous criteria but hadn’t taken advantage of the service. 

Thanks to an injection of pandemic emergency funds and more volunteers, the program kept pace with a client community that doubled in size. 

Then, in the spring of 2023, the funds dried up. 

“We got to the point where we had a greater need than we had the finances for,” Tim admits. 

The crisis only worsened as volunteers decreased by 40 percent, from 50 to 30. (Sadly, this isn’t surprising. Volunteerism continues to trend in the wrong direction for Meals on Wheels programs nationwide.) 

The only way to continue the program was to create a waitlist, a strategy adopted by a troubling number of Meals on Wheels programs — far too many to track. This decision increased awareness and expanded collaboration with other organizations, such as hospitals, which often made patient referrals.  

Still, the “astronomical” increase in need continues to eclipse the funding. Today, seniors sit on waitlists for years, awaiting the opportunity to receive meals — left to exhaust their limited means and rely on the kindness of others to meet their nutritional needs. 

The agency’s current executive director, Joy Barresi Saucier, has had the unique opportunity to sit down with her predecessor, who helped the agency for 43 years. She explains that in its history, the agency has managed waitlists and backlogs, but never anything on this scale. 

“It was never a situation where there wasn't an end in sight,” Joy emphasizes.  

“As the executive director, that's the biggest challenge,” Joy says. “Where and how does this change? What's the outcome for those waiting and waiting and waiting?” 

With such a long list, hard, often heartbreaking decisions are made when the rare opportunity to expand service arises. 

“The few times we've been able to add folks [off of the waitlist], we have to find those with the highest need and nutritional risk,” says Chris Beaulieu, director of Home Care and Nutrition Services at Aroostook Agency on Aging, who oversees the 275-person waitlist.  

He focuses on the demographic most at risk of being unable to continue independent living at home. He is serving the most vulnerable among an already vulnerable population. The agency is hyper focused on keeping these seniors in their homes, motivated by the desire to honor their wishes to stay in their homes — self-determination is a significant emphasis — and a costly alternative: moving them to expensive congregate housing. Maintaining their nutrition through Meals on Wheels in their homes is vital to this mission and an essential extension of their home care program. 

“Our agency’s goal is to help people live in their homes longer and happier,” Chris says, acknowledging their financial constraints make that an uphill battle.  

Aroostook County receives a marginal portion of the annual funds funneled into the state through the Older Americans Act — about 9 percent of the $6 million Maine gets to distribute across the state — or $600,000, roughly, to achieve the act’s ambitious goals around providing comprehensive services to older seniors. It’s not nearly enough with rising food costs, the cost to run programs and the ever-increasing need as awareness increases — a double-edged sword.   

Chris describes a community that’s incredibly supportive of their efforts: Other service groups, clubs and organizations have joined the effort to raise more funds and, again, raise awareness. But it’s not enough. In places like Presque Isle, where generosity is abundant and caring for your community and neighbor in need is a way of life, there’s an external misperception that it can lift itself alone. 

“Our region is one of helping our neighbors and finding creative solutions,” Joy says. “We’re farmers in Aroostook County. If your neighbor needs help, you're the one who goes there to help them fix something.” 

Yet, their agency — the de facto service provider for various programs and services — has no hope of meeting the community's needs and ending the wait without continued federal funding and a need-based increase in that federal funding; any pause, delay or reallocation could prove disastrous — a feeling it suspects is shared across rural America.  

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL 

The agency leans on what makes its community special and remembers what and who it is fighting for to find the motivation against impossible odds. 

Joy implores that not enough is said about how wonderful it is to live in rural communities. 

“We have great education systems, fantastic health care systems, a beautiful natural environment with four seasons and safe communities,” Joy says. “It's a great place to live.” 

Across Aroostook County, you can buy tomatoes, potatoes and other fruit and vegetables from makeshift shacks along dusty interstates — leave $5 and take a head of cabbage; trust is also a currency.  

The promise of help that meals represent tests and strains, but hopefully, it doesn’t break that trust. 

Here, community bonds and family ties are strong, and pride is even stronger — the kind of pride forged through hard work that makes asking for help difficult.  

“My dad started shining shoes when he was eight; my mom started driving a tractor when she was nine; her dad was a potato farmer,” Joy says. “Our parents, people of this older generation, started very young.” 

They value their independence as much as a helping hand.  

Unfortunately, pride and a love of community and family can only go so far when the need is so great. Waitlists amplify this changing dynamic. The local Meals on Wheels serves communities within Aroostook County that pride themselves on caring for their own and are too under-resourced to reach out a helping hand to every senior in need. 

When you’re a safety net organization for so many who need so much, hopelessness can quickly settle in.  

The county’s agency on aging doesn’t let hopelessness stop it from doing everything they can to help whoever it can through Meals on Wheels and other services. Its unspoken motto may be: “If not us, then who?” More than anything, it wants to say yes to anyone who reaches out; hope is a renewable resource, and every victory and every person off a waitlist matters — to the community and vulnerable community members.  

Meals can ensure seniors don’t suffer from loneliness and isolation, which can contribute to greater instances of depression, cognitive decline and heart disease. Meals can also be the difference between seniors staying in their homes longer or being close to their cherished, close-knit community, or leaving it behind, along with their independence and dignity. 

It’s a classic case of the disconnection between will and money. 

Stories like this and of the seniors served create a steady drumbeat of awareness and underline the ongoing need for life-changing resources that could finally end waitlists for good, keep seniors healthier in their homes longer and strengthen communities that learned to do more and more with less and less.  

Joel Roy, a teacher forced into early retirement at 60 by various ailments, including osteoarthritis, relies on the nutritious meals he received after a two-year wait to maintain a healthy weight, stay active, and remain independent.  

Inez McLean continues to adjust to life as an amputee. In 2023, vascular disease claimed her right leg. Today, after being on the waitlist for a year, she's grateful to receive a regular delivery of warm and frozen meals that enable her to stay nourished and use her free time to reconnect with two of her favorite hobbies: cooking and baking.  

Waitlists feel like an insurmountable hurdle, yet stories like Joel and Inez’s remind the county that it is truly saving lives – and with more resources, has the heart and dedication to save even more.