Ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning in February, and the dark blue Plymouth Voyager is already making its fifth stop. Danny Franco bounces out of the side of the van with a covered plastic tray and two smaller bio-degradable cartons. He has a key to the apartment building that's seen better days and rides up the rickety elevator with the accordion door, then walks down a narrow hallway. At a door he stops, knocks twice and calls out cheerfully, "Meals on Wheels."

An elderly woman in a purple sweater and long skirt takes the trays from Franco. She disappears inside for a moment, coming back to the door to talk to a visitor riding the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels mid-Wilshire route with him and driver Maria Fazio.

"It very much helps me out because I've had falls and forgot that things were on the stove," Deborah Alton, 61, says with a quiver to her voice. "And the big thing, too, I don't have many dishes to do. I have a very, very bad back, bad knees and my feet are numb. Before I had to sit in a chair and do all the dishes in the sink, leaning over.

"I don't have to go out as often to buy food now, so that's a big help, too. And it's very bad in terms of rent going up, and I have to pay for the utilities, too. So Meals on Wheels helps my finances. I just pay $25 a month.

"But the big thing for me is seeing someone every day," she adds. "I suffer from depression, and it helps get me through the day."

Back in the Voyager, Franco, whose main job is being an assistant buyer in the outreach program's purchasing department, says it's the "runners" like the one he's filling in for today who really get to know people on their regular routes. Some like to talk and some don't. With Korean clients who don't speak much English on this route, it's usually just "hello" and "goodbye."

"Some of them, they don't see anybody else throughout the whole day, and you can see they're a little bit lonely," he reports. "So you'll spend a little bit more time talking to them, seeing how their day's going, making sure they're well and eating their food. Us delivering the food helps them stay in their homes and apartments, and not having to go to nursing homes."

Fazio, the driver who has worked for Meals on Wheels for 23 years, turns halfway around in her seat and nods. The director of business and general services, who is also filling in today, urges the ride-along passenger to notice how delicious the hot spaghetti and meatballs smell.

"Just like a restaurant meal," she says with a quick laugh. "And we're more reliable than the Post Office. We delivered when we had the riots. Some of our clients had no idea what was going on, but we were delivering because they were relying on us."

'Semper Fi'
The next stop is one of Franco's favorites. The former U.S. Marine, who served a tour in Iraq, is smiling when he meets another ex-Marine on his apartment's front stoop, handing him a covered tray with a couple cartons piled on top, the day's hot lunch and cold dinner.

Timothy Alario, who served in the first Persian Gulf War, has been in the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels program off and on since 2001, and says he couldn't survive without it. He has malignant melanoma, with half his neck muscles gone from a radical dissection. Seventy percent of the day he's flat on his back in pain. So going out for a meal or groceries isn't an option. Neither is cooking.

"Oh, yeah, Meals on Wheels is a necessity for me," reports the 51-year-old former homeless man. "I have movement problems, you know, I get nausea very easily and start to choke. It I didn't get these meals every day, chances are ...," and his words trail off before he continues. "So they need to keep this thing going, not so much for guys like me, but there's a bunch of people out there in a whole lot worse shape."

Walking back to the van, Franco confides how much satisfaction he receives from helping a brother Marine. "It's good to see that they're getting taken care of," he says. "And on other routes you'll see other people who have served, not just in the Marine Corps, being helped by Meals on Wheels."

There are more stops on Mariposa, Ardmore and Hobart. One of the last is on Orolo Street just off Wilshire Boulevard. It's a fashionable towers building with a circular stone driveway. Dorothy "Dottie" Ingram greets the runner at the door. Inside is ample proof of the former interior decorator's talents, including glass doors leading to an inviting patio and a chandelier over a glass dinning room table. Not far away is a vertical fish tank.

Because the building is subject to rent control, the 79-year-old woman has been able to stay in it for more than 30 years. And because of Meals on Wheels, she has been able to keep her independent lifestyle.

"I'm a poster senior citizen for Meals on Wheels," she says, grinning. "The people are sweet and kind, and the food is good and wonderful. I don't know what I would do without it. I wouldn't be able to eat properly. I'd have to let something go, because I'm living off of my annuities - Social Security and other things."

As a diabetic with high blood pressure, Ingram especially appreciates the special non-sugar and low-sodium diet hot lunch she receives every day. She points out how hard it was to prepare such a healthy meal for herself. "Every time I tell my doctor that I'm getting Meals on Wheels, he says they're very good at giving me the right kinds of food," she notes.

But there's something else that brings a smile to her face about the program.

"I look forward to Meals on Wheels coming because, number one, I'll get a chance to see Danny," Ingram says, glancing at the young man. "And I know what he's holding in his hand." After a good laugh, she says, "I tell him, 'I wish you were my son.'"

Food line
Five women in white aprons, their hair covered with clear bonnets, are dishing out spaghetti and meatballs, chicken strips, vegetarian pasta, tossed salad topped with slices of tomato, French rolls, mixed beans, cantaloupe, butterscotch putting and other tasty-looking items into plastic trays on an fast-moving assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud. Behind them in the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels kitchen half a dozen chefs are in perpetual motion manning stainless steel ovens and huge boilers.

Observing all this a little after nine on this weekday morning is Sister Alice Marie Quinn. "When we started out 31 years ago, everybody got the same tray," she says. "That's how everybody does it. But then one lady said, 'If I eat the fish on Friday I'll die because I'm allergic to fish.' So now we take into consideration people who are diabetics, who are on low-sodium diets, or even low-vitamin K diets for clients who are on blood thinners.

"And we take into consideration their likes and dislike. Because our mission is to bring the homebound who can't cook for themselves a hot nutritious meal that they're going to eat. Otherwise, they're just going to throw it away, and you waste all this money."

Then she walks to the other side of the floor where cold suppers are being prepared. Today's menu includes tuna fish, crackers, baby carrots, pineapple chunks and juice. Sister Quinn explains how cooks start coming in at 5 a.m., the food assembly line cranks up around nine and the last delivery route goes out a little after noon.

Nearly a thousand hot meals and 900 cold suppers are delivered daily to St. Vincent Meals on Wheels clients in 36 routes. Every Wednesday, breakfasts are delivered for the entire week. Even more contracted meals go to senior citizen and community centers in El Segundo, Torrance, La Mirada, Culver City, Glendale, Inglewood and other cities.

The meals cost St. Vincent almost $7 to produce, up from $6 only a year ago. The non-profit asks clients - many of whom are elderly on fixed incomes - for a donation of $2.50. Some give $10 a month for their daily meals, while others can only come up with a dollar. "They give what they can," says Sister Quinn.

The Daughter of Charity points out that as a privately funded organization St. Vincent Meals on Wheels needs to raise $5 million every year to keep the outreach operation going. She also notes that donations are down from both clients and donors, including grants from foundations and businesses, at the largest nongovernmentally funded Meals on Wheels program in the nation.

Feeding the poor
Back in her office off the kitchen, Sister Quinn settles behind a cluttered desk with statues of St. Francis and Jesus amid piles of papers and folders. On a wall nearby is a framed painting of St. Vincent de Paul ("he's watching over me") along with an army of angels and crucifixes ("I need all the help I can get").

When asked about the economic crisis and its effect on her program, the Chicago native who entered religious life on her 19th birthday responds without missing a beat.

"I don't stress over not having the money," she says matter of factly, sounding a bit like the no-nonsense parochial school principal played by actress Meryl Streep in the movie "Doubt." "Because I know we're doing a good thing. We're feeding the poor, and anybody - even if they have a lot of money and they don't have anything to eat - they're poor. St. Vincent always said if you have a great need, you're poor.

"A lot of people say, 'We can't do more meals until we get more money.' I don't see that. I mean, if we have the capacity to feed people, I'm going to go feed them and then the money will come. And it has for 31½ years. We take it one day at a time, because that's how God takes care of you. God takes care of us because we're really trying to do the right thing."

Sister Quinn does admit there were some scary moments in the late 1970s when she started taking meals to recently discharged patients from St. Vincent Medical Center, where she had worked as a dietitian, who needed special diets. She remembers going to a flophouse hotel on a Saturday, with the ex-patient she wanted to see standing at the end of the long, dark hall. Petrified, she decided if anybody came out of a door to attack her, she would throw the cup of hot coffee at him. But nobody did, and the recuperating gentleman enjoyed his hot meal.

She also recalls going up an elevator in an upscale apartment building on Wilshire Blvd. carrying six trays in her arms. When a big beefy guy got on, he stared down at her scowling and asked, 'What are you doing in here?' But after she told him she was bringing food to some people who were sick, he helped her carry the trays and even deliver them. Looking back, she figures he was one of her original volunteers.

"Most of the people I visited at first were alone, old and had nothing to eat," she reports. "So I'd go back in the hospital cafeteria, just fix up a tray and walk out and bring it to them. I never paid for it and nobody ever said anything because you're a nun."

Today the 73-year-old administrator, who has had both knees replaced and has a bad back, doesn't make many house calls. Paperwork keeps her mostly at her desk. But she still "runs the show with a lot of help," coming to work seven days a week, balancing her job with an hour of early morning prayer and an evening Rosary with the nine other Daughters of Charity she lives with nearby.

The former hospital dietitian makes out the daily menus as she always has, priding herself on the nutritious meals that come out of her busy kitchen. She also enjoys sending birthday cards along with little cakes and a gift to clients.

"People are always asking what keeps me going," Sister Quinn says with a bemused expression. "I read in the Bible, 'The Lord is my strength.' And I really believe that. This is my vocation, and I know I'm doing what God wants me to do."

To contact St. Vincent Meals on Wheels, go to http://stvincentmow.org or call (213) 484-7775.