A couple of cooks

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Published on Thursday, May 12, 2016

Photo by Kira Paterson. George and Vicki Woloski are a husband and wife team cooking for the HAND congregate meal program. Vicki has been working there for over six years, with George joining her a few weeks ago.

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Neepawa seniors are able to get home cooked meals through the Home Assistance Neepawa and District (HAND) Congregate Meal Program. Now, their meals are being made by a husband and wife team. 

George and Vicki Woloski are the HAND Congregate Meal cooks, serving up home cooked meals for citizens 55 years of age or older. The meal program is on every Tuesday to Friday and this couple cooks every meal. Then, when it’s time to serve, they have volunteers come out during lunch to help them with serving and cleaning. 

Vicki has been working in the kitchen at the Yellowhead Manor, which is where the meals take place, for over six years now. Her husband, George, started working there just over two weeks ago. “We’re a husband and wife team. Whatever I don’t do, he does and whatever he doesn’t do, I do in the kitchen,” Vicki said. “Works out pretty good.”

They both enjoy the job and agree that it’s an important one. “It’s fun and you’re helping seniors,” Vicki said. “[We] meet different people all the time.” 

“We get more and more people all the time,” said George, “so we’re doing something right.” 

Vicki added that it’s good for seniors to be able come out and enjoy a home cooked meal that they wouldn’t often have at home living alone. “Today, for instance, who’s going to go out and buy a pizza for one person?... That’s basically three quarters of everyone here [at the congregate meals], they’re just one person.” 

The Woloskis were born and raised in the Neepawa area. Vicki had a home daycare and cleaned for homecare before she started cooking for HAND. George worked at Prairie Forest for 23 years but got injured recently and had been on disability pay before he got the opportunity to join Vicki in the kitchen. 

Both have taken their food safety course, but other than that, the only experience either of them have in the culinary arts is cooking at home. But that, of course, makes the home cooked meals even more genuine. “We both come from big families,” Vicki explained. “I’m the oldest [in my family], well my sister and I are twins and we’re the oldest. So we did all the cooking and helped my mom and dad out all the time.” 

“We know all the old tricks,” added George.

Genie Barnaby, the coordinator at HAND, is very enthusiastic about having a husband and wife team in the kitchen. “They’re amazing,” Barnaby said. “They’re a good team, they’re both great cooks and everybody’s quite thrilled with [the meals] they’re getting.” 

This week, the couple was be extra busy, cooking a roast beef dinner for the celebration of HAND’s 30th anniversary on Wednesday and a ham and potatoes dinner for the Let No One Be Alone meal on Friday.