Meals on Wheels in need of volunteers for rural communites

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Meals on Wheels of Erath County (MOWEC) needs your help to keep meals rolling to Morgan Mill and Duffau communities. MOWEC Executive Director Whitney Lee said the communities are only served meals once a week.

“Since we don’t have a distribution site in these areas, we deliver a week’s worth of frozen meals along with one hot meal each week,” Lee said. “Then we call them throughout the week just to check in and make sure everything is going ok.”

Because these routes are only delivered once a week and generally depend on a single volunteer, delivery schedules can be a little more flexible.

“Right now we deliver Morgan Mill on Mondays and the Duffau, Seldon area on Wednesdays. But if we need to move that to a different day to help accommodate a volunteer’s schedule we can,” Lee said.

In the past, she added, they had a volunteer from Hico come in once a week to do the Duffau route.

“She would combine the delivery with her weekly trips into town. So she’d come in, do her errands, pick up the meals, then deliver them on her way home and just bring us the coolers back later,” Lee said. “It worked out really well for everyone.”   

Generally, volunteer drivers take hot meals along specific routes through out the county and most volunteers commit to delivering meals one day a week. Drivers pick up meals between 10:15 and 10:30 a.m. on weekdays and spend about an hour delivering the meals.

One Meals on Wheels recipient recently sent a note, thanking staff and volunteers for their service.

“I’m so grateful to have been a recipient of Stephenville’s Meals on Wheels. The meals were nutritious and delicious and were always delivered to me by drivers whose smiles and friendships brightened my day.”

Lee said volunteers are the backbone of Meals on Wheels programs across the country. Not only do they deliver meals to homebound seniors in their local communities, Meals on Wheels volunteers provide the seniors they serve with companionship and a warm, friendly smile when they arrive at the door.

People with all types of schedules, interests and abilities can help. And, signing up as a substitute driver is a great way to get involved with minimal commitment.

“This time of year we have a lot of driver’s out because they’re sick or on vacation,” Lee said. “There has been the rare occasion when we’ve had all staff members out of the office and delivering a route or sometimes two routes on the same day.”

Anybody or organization interested to contact MOWEC in Dublin at (254) 445-2898 or Stephenville at (254) 965-3510. MOWEC also has a Facebook page to keep friends updated.

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