Program director Jane Semelsberger celebrates 20 years with La Jolla Meals on Wheels

“Every day is a good day,” La Jolla Meals on Wheels program director Jane Semelsberger says as she celebrates 20 years with the nonprofit.

Semelsberger started in 2003 as a coordinator for the local organization, which was established in 1974 to deliver weekday meals to homebound senior citizens and others in La Jolla and University City. She became program director five years later.

Each delivery, made by volunteers in their own vehicles, includes a hot meal, a cold meal and a beverage.

Volunteers deliver eight to 20 meals, depending on the day. “Anybody that’s in [ZIP codes] 92037 or 92122 we will take care of,” Semelsberger said.

Semelsberger runs the La Jolla Meals on Wheels office and manages staffing, billing, communications and “making sure [clients are] happy and satisfied,” she said. The program has three staff members in addition to herself and about 160 volunteers.

“I’m the problem-solver,” she said, which includes working to obtain grants. “Because we are a nonprofit, we go by as much as we can get throughout the community,” she said.

Semelsberger’s role is part time; she works from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Mondays through Fridays. When she’s not working, the resident of north Pacific Beach enjoys walking and traveling with her husband.

Semelsberger got the program director job “as a whim from a friend” who wanted full-time hours elsewhere, she said.

“They interviewed me and the next day they said I had the job. I felt like the luckiest girl around,” Semelsberger said.

“I just needed to do something like this for the community and seniors in general,” said Semelsberger, who added that La Jolla Meals on Wheels helped her with her parents until they died. “It just was a perfect fit for me at the time. … I’m not going anywhere.”

Meeting new people every day has kept Semelsberger with the organization for 20 years and counting, she said.

“These volunteers, they’re the lifeline for our job and … it’s just a great thing to do for the community and for us to deliver meals,” she said.

La Jolla Meals on Wheels board President Ron Jones said Semelsberger demonstrates “a declared passion for service to the community” and “has proved beyond adept at all aspects of the role.”

“[This] isn’t a job for Jane, it’s a mission, a profession of pure love for our clients,” Jones said. “She makes us look good. We’re lucky to have her.”

La Jolla Meals on Wheels has served more than 775,000 meals to more than 1,850 clients since its founding.

Though most clients are seniors and longtime La Jollans, “we will feed anyone who needs us,” Semelsberger said. One of the younger clients was a 35-year-old woman who broke her back and had no other way to get food.

Delivery is $7.50 per day. Daily delivery is not required and meal subsidies are available.

“A lot of our seniors don’t want food all the time” and opt for two or three times per week, Semelsberger said.

“Not only are we bringing them food, but we’re checking on their well-being,” she said.

La Jolla Meals on Wheels began a sister program, La Jolla Friendly Visitors, in 2013 to address observations of senior loneliness and isolation.

Though La Jolla Meals on Wheels is often confused with Meals on Wheels San Diego County, “we’re on our own two feet,” Semelsberger emphasized.

La Jolla Meals on Wheels will hold a celebration of its first 50 years in May 2024, and Semelsberger hopes current and past volunteers will participate. “That’s a really big thing,” she said.

Until then, Semelsberger plans to keep La Jolla Meals on Wheels going as it has been. “We’re just hoping we can continue to feed anyone that needs us in the local community,” she said.

For more information, visit lajollamealsonwheels.org or call (858) 452-0391.

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