The Meal-A-Day program is still in desperate need of weekly volunteer cooks for Wednesdays and Thursdays, program coordinators reported. Two cooks who can commit to coming each week at 7 a.m. until about 10 a.m. are needed on Wednesday and two on Thursday as well.
Volunteers who can donate time from 7 to 8:30 a.m. to help assemble and cook casseroles and vegetables, or donate time from 8:30 to 10 a.m. to package meals, cook desserts, and sanitize kitchen would also be much appreciated.
The Meal-A-Day Program currently has head cooks for both days but need two additional ‘sous’ cooks to help with mixing, stirring, chopping, and assembling the casseroles or vegetables for the day’s menu items and desserts for the next day.
Volunteers don’t have to know how to cook – just be able to follow directions. The head cooks know the recipes and can guide volunteers in the steps to help them get the menu items cooked and assembled for the day’s meals.
Many of the 150-160 senior citizens receiving daily meals desperately depend on Meal-A-Day.
Meal-A-Day depends on volunteers to provide this vital service. In a week, Meal-A-Day workers approximately 80 volunteer hours for preparing, cooking, and packaging meals and approximately 65 volunteer hours for delivering meals.
Program coordinators noted that Meal-A-Day’s volunteer base is aging. The program needs additional cooks and drivers to replace the dedicated volunteers when they have to retire from serving Meal-A-Day due to age or health, the program is continually in need of new cooks and drivers
In order to continue Meal-A-Day, additional volunteers are needed to ease the responsibility of the dedicated who have taken on extra duties to fill the gap when other volunteers are no longer able to continue donating their time to prepare and/or deliver meals for the program, program coordinators note. In fact several volunteers are at the Center 2-3 days a week to enable Meal-A-Day to continue on a Monday-Friday basis.
“We just can’t continue to ask this of our volunteers. We are just too short handed at this point,” program coordinators reported.
To volunteer, call the Senior Citizens Center at 903-885-1661 and ask for Cecil or Tina, or e-mail Meal-A-Day at [email protected].
“Please come be a part of Meal-A-Day! It is a rewarding experience. You meet a lot of nice volunteers who love helping our community seniors. Meal-A-Day needs 3-4 hours of 1 day out of your week to enable us to continue to bless our seniors with meals,” the coordinators urge.
The Sulphur Springs Senior Citizens Center is a place where Senior Citizens age 50 and over can have a good time with old friends and make some new ones. Meal-A-Day is just one service the center provides. The coffee pot is always on and a smile is on each face. The SCC has a full library with all different kinds of reading books that can be taken, read and returned. Take as many as you like and bring some of your books in to share with others. Click here to find more information for seniors citizens.
