While Madison County Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels offers the homebound nutritious meals, the program provides much more than food. With the daily home delivery of meals, it also provides a cheerful check on senior citizens, plus peace of mind for their families.

“When we drive up to deliver a meal, our clients are waiting on us, sometimes at the door, happy to see us, kind and grateful,” says Senior Center Director Kelsey Tyner.

Such is the case with clients Sloan and Ruth Galloway, of Hull, who both receive a hot lunch from the Meals on Wheels program each weekday. Ruth suffers with severe arthritis, diabetes, heart and kidney issues that leave her unable to prepare the delicious meals she once cooked. Her husband and caregiver, Sloan has heart and kidney issues of his own. The couple moved to Georgia in 2014 after a home invasion in Ohio left Sloan with injuries that forced his early retirement.

“I was stabbed 17 times, in the hospital for two months, and had to learn to walk all over again,” says Sloan, a Vietnam veteran who had been employed as a maintenance worker in Ohio. “I used to work all the time and all of a sudden couldn’t do it anymore.”

Sloan and Ruth moved to the area in February 2014, hoping to get a fresh start. In March, the couple signed up for Meals on Wheels.

“The meals really help,” says Sloan. “We save money on food and it’s a good meal that we enjoy having.”

As Jackson EMC members who contribute through Operation Round Up, the couple takes pride in knowing they help themselves—and others—by their donations to the Jackson EMC Foundation. Delivering hot lunches Monday through Friday, Meals on Wheels provides its 60 senior clients with nutrition, independence and socialization, according to Tyner.

“This is a program that goes above and beyond just lunch,” she says. “Our healthy, balanced meals keep people comfortably at home as long as possible. Plus, for seniors who live alone or whose caregivers work during the day, it’s a good resource to have someone visiting in the middle of the day to check on them."

Since awarding its first $15,000 grant for Meals on Wheels in May 2006, the Jackson EMC Foundation has granted a total of $97,500 to the senior center.

To learn more about the Madison County Senior Center, visit http://madcosenior.wix.com/mcseniorcenter.