Owensboro native Chris Conley said helping deliver essential needs to the elderly as part of Operation Continuing Hope is under control, though there was an initial scare that the demand would be too overwhelming.
Conley, U.S. Army veteran, has been delivering food and medicine to seniors and the special needs community as well as making delivery runs for them since last month.
“If I can go to the store for them, that takes them out of the high-risk category if they were to stay home where there’s no risk,” Conley said. “That’s how that’s going to work and that’s pretty much why we’re doing this.”
Operation Continuing Hope began in an effort on a small scale to help the elderly, but Conley said it transitioned to something that was on the verge of compromising the mission.
Conley said that when he initially made deliveries for some of the local food banks and churches, they started to get flooded with orders, and supplies started depleting as needs kept growing.
After Real Hacienda Mexican Restaurant had to stop their charitable food program due to various safety concerns and high demand, Conley said the local food pantries were fearful their service would also be overwhelmed.
“That opened our eyes,” Conley said. “We were going to have to be a little bit covert about this with helping the elderly. We just want to make sure these food donations and this aid is getting to the right places.”
Conley said fortunately, the one-man mission turned into other veterans and volunteers taking turns to make deliveries.
Conley said there were days when he would drive 400 miles and work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. delivering food. He said with the additional manpower, the volunteers have helped carry some of the weight.
Conley encourages people to shift to a more generous mindset and not be selfish in these hard times.
“We’ve had enough ‘me time’ to hoard all the toilet papers and the hamburger meat and everything else,” he said. “We have to slowly transition and get people into thinking about the we.”
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