CLARKSVILLE, TN — As our community expands, so does the number of elderly and disabled residents who require assistance. The local Meals on Wheels chapter urgently needs more volunteers to prepare and deliver food to seniors.
Meals on Wheels is a program of the Mid-Cumberland Human Resource Agency that serves 13 counties in middle Tennessee. Every weekday in Montgomery County, approximately 500 seniors receive a lunch meal.
Sharon McDaniel, Meals on Wheels’ Mid-Cumberland community engagement director, stated that volunteers are the program’s lifeblood, and they are always looking for more people to help prepare the food and, especially, deliver the lunch meals.
She stated that each meal is healthy and consists of meat, two vegetables, bread, dessert, and milk. The food is picked up at one of the county’s two meal preparation sites around 10:30 a.m. and delivered by volunteers Monday through Friday.
“About half of our seniors live alone, so the volunteer may be the only person they see on a daily basis. We always ask them how they’re doing because we see them every day; it’s like a daily check-in, McDaniel explained.
McDaniel added that one of the most common comments they receive from volunteers is that they are not only providing physical nourishment, but also emotional nourishment.
Other ways to help
Kitchen assistance is also required for meal preparation at Clarksville’s meal sites on weekday mornings from 8:30-10 a.m. McDaniel stated that volunteers can help out once a week, every other week, once a month, or whenever it is most convenient for their schedule.
McDaniel emphasized that, in addition to an urgent need for volunteers, there is a waiting list for seniors who want to receive Meals on Wheels. Montgomery County has the longest Meals on Wheels waiting list of any county in Mid-Cumberland.
The organization also accepts monetary donations and is working to remove those in need from their meal waiting list, with the goal of raising enough funds and recruiting enough volunteers to eliminate the waiting list entirely.
