{"id":135720,"date":"2026-01-29T00:55:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135720\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:55:25","slug":"former-miami-dolphins-linebacker-helps-south-floridas-seniors-by-delivering-them-fresh-meals-its-a-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135720\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Miami Dolphins linebacker helps South Florida’s seniors by delivering them fresh meals: “It’s a joy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami Dolphins<\/a> community remains strong: Whether you’re playing or retired, and when one former linebacker was asked to help out his former boss, he jumped right in.<\/p>\n

The average South Floridian<\/a> probably knows Offerdahl’s Off The Grill as a nice, casual, healthy restaurant owned by former Dolphins linebacker John Offerdahl. What you might not know is what he does with it outside of business hours. What started as a favor to Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, asking his restaurant-owning alumni to help feed people during the pandemic, turned into something bigger.<\/p>\n

“If you think about it, like, that’s what a team does \u2013 it unites during tough times,” Offerdahl told CBS Miami. “It finds its resources. It extends itself out into the community.”<\/p>\n

But Offerdahl didn’t want it to stop there, so Hand Off Meals for Seniors was born: A program with volunteers hand-delivering meals to the hundreds of homebound seniors in Broward County. The program is a part of Offerdahl’s Hand Off Foundation, which, since its inception in 2012, has served more than 1 million meals across South Florida by partnering with civic, business, and faith organizations.<\/p>\n

“Also deliver for Meals on Wheels, and that’s where I do 10, and I just found out that I can get more deliveries from hands off,” said volunteer Debra Pinto.<\/p>\n

“So we’re going to beat that with a lot,” Offerdahl added.<\/p>\n

An experience that keeps volunteers coming back for more. <\/p>\n

“The volunteer delivery driver will do is they’ll call any of our restaurant partners 30 minutes before they arrive, so that we can have the fresh food waiting for them,” Offerdahl told CBS Miami.<\/p>\n

“I can only speak for myself when I say, thank you,” said recipient Barbara “BJ” Mundy.<\/p>\n

“Oh, this woman is just a bright light,” added volunteer Ellen Crane.<\/p>\n

“Nice to be able to sit in the kitchen, open the door and here comes Ellen, the volunteer who brings my food once a week,” Mundy said. “It’s just a joy. “<\/p>\n

South Florida’s senior population live at or near poverty level, report finds<\/p>\n

Florida ranks second in the United States for the highest percentage of residents age 65 or older, according to the Administration for Community Living’s 2023 Profile of Older Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the Community Foundation of Broward’s “Silver Tsunami” report<\/a>, Broward County has the state’s fastest-growing population of seniors and many of these residents live at or near the poverty level, unable to access healthy foods and often suffering from debilitating loneliness. <\/p>\n

To learn more about the program and sign up for volunteer work, visit handoffmeals.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Dolphins community remains strong: Whether you’re playing or retired, and when one former linebacker was asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[506,502,3535,123,1763,125,124,36299,807],"class_list":{"0":"post-135720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-broward-county","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-food-insecurity","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-dolphins","13":"tag-miami-headlines","14":"tag-miami-news","15":"tag-senior-citizens","16":"tag-south-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}