Public Service Profile
Store to Door
By Michelle Church
Greene County has many community members that have to deal with the lack of reliable transportation daily. The lack of transportation makes even the most mundane errands – like going to the grocery store – a huge and difficult task. For those without regular transportation to the grocery store, the new Store to Door program by Blueprints will be a life changer.
The program began in June 2019 and will allow elderly residents, who are unable to get to the grocery store, to have their groceries delivered directly to them. The requirements are that the person lives in Greene County, is 60 years of age or older, and has no reliable options to get to the grocery store. Blueprints, formerly Community Action Southwest, is a local non-profit organization that is responsible for many programs geared to help the community. .
Currently, those using the program have been referred from within the Aging Well department at Blueprints. The goal is to start out slow and then the Store to Door program will likely be expanded once more volunteers are available.
To begin using the Store to Door program, a person fills out a brief enrollment form. They also provide the information from their Giant Eagle card and their Snap card if they have one. They would then select the method they would use to make payments.
There is absolutely no fee for using the service. The workers at Giant Eagle fill the orders free of charge and a volunteer from RSVP delivers the order. RSVP, or Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, is a group of people age 55 and older who are volunteering their time to help the community. Many members of the RSVP program also serve as delivery drivers for Meals on Wheels.
Those using Store to Door are given a catalog of items from Giant Eagle to create an order. On Wednesday each week, they speak to a representative from the program to place their order. A Giant Eagle store employee gathers up the items the customer selected and bags them. Then a volunteer from RSVP comes to collect the grocery order, deliver it to the customer’s home and accept their payment method.
Jill Peth, from Blueprints, feels there is a “big community need to be filled by this service.” She states that the program started after receiving input from the community that this program would be extremely helpful for serving Greene County’s homebound citizens.
Currently, Giant Eagle in Waynesburg is the only grocery store that is part of the program. The goal is to see the program expand to Giant Eagle in Rices Landing within the month, depending on the availability of volunteers. Blueprints would happily welcome new volunteers to help and is always recruiting new volunteers for this service, or any one of their many other programs. A grant from federal funding has provided for this program with mileage reimbursement for volunteers. If you have interest in volunteering, contact Jill Peth at 724-852-2893, Ext. 520.
