Checking In With Meals For The Elderly

While the thought of serving a few dozen hot meals over a weekend may strike terror in the heart of the average home chef, the folks at Meals for the Elderly are fearless as they prepare and deliver more than 600 hot meals every weekday, servicing about 50 routes that serve as a lifeline for roughly 700 recipients in the area.

Volunteers have always been a major component of the operation, and it must be pretty rewarding because some of them have been doing it for 50 years now.

Suzanne Valenzuela began working with Meals as a volunteer, but now she runs the social media and outreach for the organization and gave The Concho Observer a tour of the facility located just off the Houston Harte Expressway, where cooks arrive in the kitchen at 4 a.m. preparing 3,000 hot meals weekly for the homebound.

They have to run a pretty tight ship to make sure everything is ahead of schedule for the day, coordinating meals based on what foods are in the pantry.

A few hours later, and the front office is bustling with activity, as volunteer staff members come and go, answer telephone calls and helping to get everything ready for delivery.

In the distribution area, meals and other useful supplies that have been donated are bagged and prepared for delivery each day,

First time visitors at the facility are often overwhelmed to see the hundreds of brightly colored handmade tiles created at the Chicken Farm Art Center, that carry the names volunteers and donors decorating the front room.

The kitchen director, Gino, sums up why volunteers like working here so much: “It’s fun,” he says.

As a part of this year’s celebration of 50-plus years, Meals for the Elderly recognized the volunteers who’ve played a vital role in the organization’s success.

Meals has 119 volunteers with one to five years of service, 100 volunteers with five to nine years of service, 68 volunteers with 10 to 19 years of service, 36 volunteers with up to 29 years of service, and 31 volunteers with 30 to 50 years of service.

Upcoming Fundraisers

On October 5, ASCO Equipment will host their Charity Golf Classic benefitting Meals for the Elderly.

The tournament will starts 11 a.m. at Bentwood Country Club. For more information or sponsorship opportunities, contact Chris Wilis at 325-655-5666.

On October 15, Meals for the Elderly will host their annual Dueling Pianos charity event at the McNease Convention Center. The event is sponsored by Art for a Good Cause.

For more information and tickets visit the website.

For any questions or reservations, please call 325-655-9200.

A Brief History of Meals Programs in San Angelo

The first “Meals on Wheels” was created in London during the early days of World War II when neighbors who could cook teamed up to make and deliver food to people whose homes had been bombed during the Blitz, leading to the creation of the Royal Voluntary Service.

Participants carried meals using strollers, carts, bicycles and wheelbarrows along walking paths, inspiring the “Meals on Wheels” name.

The program first came to the United States in 1954, when a Philadelphia social worker named Margaret Toy launched a program, and Americans — knowing a good idea when they see one — quickly began launching similar grassroots efforts in towns and cities across the country.

According to local news reports, the first Meals on Wheels program in San Angelo was initiated by Baptist Memorials Hospital in January of 1959, as part of a $50,000 expansion made possible by donors across West Texas.

The report stated that along with a new 68-bed wing, $20,000 went to build a new kitchen and to begin delivering food to more than 100 homebound seniors.

These programs garnered a great deal of attention, and when the Johnson Administration kicked off its series of Great Society programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, federal funding for social programs was made available for some pilot programs through Community Action Councils.

The San Angelo CAC began a local program in mid-1971, initially delivering meals to about 30 households.

In 1972, Pres. Richard Nixon signed an amendment to the Older Americans Act, funding national senior nutrition programs that greatly enhanced the reach of these programs, and in 1974 Meals on Wheels America was established to connect and represent independent local programs nationwide.

In the meantime, San Angelo’s CAC lost funding for its program, but Mary Alice Rodgers, a board member of the South Angelo Neighborhood Center had been campaigning for funds to begin a “hot meals for the aged” program for some time.

She had travelled to Austin several times trying to secure funding at the state level, and was working with local civic groups and churches to try to get something going.

After going before the city commission several times, and being turned down, she appealed to Tom Green County commissioners in September of 1973, and they agreed to provide a letter endorsing the program along with “some kind of financial support.”

Meals for the Elderly began delivering meals in August of 1974,

Mrs. Rodgers died in December of 1991 at the age of 86.