I’ve been involved in providing services to senior adults since 1978. I had no intention of making this my career when I first started at the senior center in Du Quoin.

My education and training was in administering rehabilitation programs for disabled adults. Back then I was a young, unemployed person and needed a job. The senior center in Du Quoin seemed like an interesting place to start my working career. Once I understood the importance of providing services for seniors, I’ve never had a thought of doing anything else.

Providing services to senior adults has its challenges, like the Friday of my first week on the job at the senior center when I received a telephone call from someone who wanted to know if her mom could get meals delivered on weekends and holidays. The senior center, like most businesses and social service agencies, was closed on weekends and holidays.

“What is my mom expected to do for a meal if you’re closed?” the caller wanted to know. I wasn’t sure how to answer her as I was new to the job. There wasn’t enough money to hire staff to work weekends and holidays and there still isn’t enough.

But challenges like the one I received that day so many years ago are what made me stay in the senior services business, rather than go back to the one for which I was educated and trained. I still haven’t been able to obtain the funding for weekend meal services, but I have received help to provide meals on holidays.

For nearly a decade, the United Way, the Gray Cemetery Trust, and donations from the public have helped to provide delivered meals to homebound senior adults on major holidays when the regular meal program is closed. Last year there were 1,652 meals delivered, the largest number yet, on seven different holidays in nine counties in Southern Illinois.

Meals were purchased on holidays from restaurants, hospitals, churches, and community organizations throughout Southern Illinois. These meals are usually delivered by volunteers.

Many of the homebound seniors don’t have family nearby with which to celebrate the holidays. Often, the person who delivers the holiday meal is the only visitor that homebound seniors will have. That makes the delivered meal on holidays even more important and beneficial.

If you would like to volunteer or donate to the Holiday Meals on Wheels fund for your community, contact us. For more information about other senior adult programs in your community, call your local senior center.

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