The Meals on Wheels program provides seniors with home deliveries of nutritious, hot and frozen meals. In addition to the meals, homebound seniors also receive an often much-needed visit by a caring volunteer. Over 400 seniors county wide are enrolled in the MOW program.
In addition to that program, hot meals are served to all seniors at six community centers. Nutritionists plan the menus. Meals consist of an entrée with vegetables and fruit and are prepared at The Friendship Kitchens in The Woodlands. Volunteers – individuals, churches and businesses – begin picking up hot meals from the centers at 10:30 AM, and then head out on their routes for delivery.
Meals are delivered to seniors either daily or weekly, depending on where they live. If it's a weekly delivery, enough food for five days is delivered frozen.
To qualify for the Meals on Wheels program, a person must be 60 years of age or older, live in Montgomery County and have a physical impairment that makes the simple task of daily living a challenge. Seniors don't have to be bedridden, but generally are homebound.
The applicants are pre-screened, and they are visited in their homes to see what special needs they might have. Many seniors live alone, and for most, the weekly visit from the MOW volunteer is almost more important to them than the meal.
The center receives funds from the United Way, the Houston-Galveston Area Agency Council on Aging, city, county,and government grants and donations. The Center's goal is to never turn any senior away, for financial reasons. Participants are encouraged, but not obligated, to contribute donations for the service.
Volunteers are always needed to deliver Meals-on-Wheels.
The Friendship Center is in need of Meals-on-Wheels volunteers to drive routes and deliver meals to home-bound seniors on a regular and substitute basis. We currently have wait lists of homebound seniors in need of meals in many of our communities. By volunteering time to deliver meals, you will allow these wait-listed seniors the opportunity to be included in our program.
For information on becoming a volunteer, please call or email Crystal Sumner at (936) 756-5828 ext. 45 or volunteer@tfc-seniorservices.org.
The Meals on Wheels Pet Program provides deliveries of pet food to homebound seniors with pet companions. Oftentimes, homebound seniors receive much of their joy from their daily interactions with their pets. A volunteer at The Friendship Center took notice of this common situation while delivering Meals on Wheels in 2009 and began the pet project.
Independent of agency funding, volunteers of the Pet Program collect donations of pet food year-round and organize and distribute this food to the pets of homebound Meals on Wheels clients every month.
In order to continue this heartwarming program, volunteers and pet food donations are consistently needed. For more information, please contact us today!