DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS BRING SENIORS HOPE ALONG WITH A HOT MEAL.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Stately Byron Thomas, his sweater held closed with a big safety pin, answered the door of his 1930s Hollywood bungalow with a big smile on his face.

St. Vincent Medical Center Meals on Wheels volunteer Kathryn Pelayo was at the door with his lunch. For the 90-year-old retired actor who now spends his days writing poetry, Pelayo's visit was a bright spot in an otherwise solitary day.

Since his wife's death a few years ago, Thomas has relied on the meals program to provide both food and a few minutes of companionship.

``I think it's an absolute blessing,'' said Thomas, who claims to have acted in ``all the big pictures'' of the 1930s and to have palled around with the likes of a young Ronald Reagan. ``The meals are ideal. Somebody obviously puts a lot of thought into them. They're just what I need.''

To make sure Thomas and more than 1,400 others get their meals 365 days a year, work begins at 4:30 a.m. in the building behind the medical center at Third and Alvarado streets. By 10 a.m., meals in insulated trays are loaded into vans for delivery along routes that totaled more than 181,000 miles in the past year.

Meals cost about $4.35 each to make and deliver, but clients are asked to pay much less - $2 for a hot lunch, 75 cents each for a salad-and-sandwich dinner or a cereal-juice-and-muffin breakfast. Those who can't afford it pay nothing.

One recent morning, Pelayo and driver Dee James set out in a red van with nearly three dozen meals in their insulated trays.

The first stop was at the once-beautiful old home of a woman celebrating her 83rd birthday. Dorothy was propped up in a big chair, facing a blaring television set, her hair neatly combed. What furniture she had - an ornate double bed covered with a thin blanket, an old-fashioned upright piano, a few chairs, an electric space heater - was crowded into the living room, which is where she lives.

James and Pelayo greeted her with hugs and a note from Sister Alice Marie. When they showed her a two-serving birthday cake decorated with frosting flowers and sang ``Happy Birthday,'' she nodded her head in time to the music. Pelayo draped a blue crocheted shawl around her shoulders, and Dorothy patted it.

``That's nice,'' she rumbled in a voice made gruff with age. ``Nice. Thank you.''

Departing, Pelayo said the old woman, who recently fell and broke a shoulder, refuses to live with relatives, who have hired someone to live with her and pay for her meals.

``People hear about people like her, owning her own home, and they wonder why she's in the meal program,'' Pelayo said. ``Well, she's in no shape to shop or cook for herself. And a lot of older people don't have a lot of money, and what they do have is used to keep up their houses, pay the taxes. And there's nothing left over for food.''

A few blocks away, the van stopped in front of a crumbling apartment building where David and Henry, two men in their 70s, live with their dog, Charlie, in a one-room apartment mostly filled with David's hospital bed. At Pelayo's knock, Henry opened the door just wide enough to admit the two food trays she carried. Charlie bounded up, begging to be petted, and David smiled over the covers.

``We're probably the only people they'll see all day,'' Pelayo said after Henry shut the door again. ``A lot of people have no family, no relatives. They never go out, except if somebody takes them to the doctor. At least these fellows have each other and the dog.''

A few doors down the street, a small, dark-eyed boy danced up and down as he spotted the van, then dashed inside the apartment house, returning with his mother, Sonia Burgos. Burgos, 34, cares for an elderly neighbor, Lilian, 85, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and must be locked inside her second-floor apartment to keep her from wandering into traffic. Burgos cooks her breakfast and dinner and cleans her apartment, but the elderly woman relishes her daily lunch from the Meals on Wheels program.

``She took care of me for years, starting when I was 16,'' Burgos said. ``So now I take care of her. She's really sweet. But she's kinda ... well, going up here.'' She gestured toward her head. ``But she loves the lunch. She looks forward to it every day.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Volunteers load some of the more than 1,400 meals delivered daily as part of the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels program. Vans logged more than 181,000 miles on the program's routes last year.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News