Bonnie Agner remembers the early days.
It was in the early 70s, when Kingsport’s Meals on Wheels first started. She had a route on Carver Street.
She said, one day, she went up stairs to an older Black lady’s home.
“I remember, she put her arm around me and said, ‘Inside, we’re just alike,” Agner said.
Meals on Wheels of Kingsport is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. For more than a half century, volunteers for the organization have been spreading out across the Model City delivering to white, black, brown, rich or poor.
There is no limit on who is hungry and needs a meal.
“It has nothing to do with money in the bank or what type of home you live in, it has to do with you physically unable to make yourself a meal.”
During the year, many events are planned or being planned to celebrate the accomplishment of the non-profit that started out of a church with people cooking out of their homes.
Candace Sass, board president, said in April the organization plans to hold an appreciation day and present volunteers with T-shirts. Also, Meals on Wheels will be holding a car show to honor the 50th anniversary.
There will also be a 50th Anniversary Celebration Dinner held at the Farmer’s Market on Sept. 23, Sass said.
Finally, the organization is conducting a drive called “50 for Fifty” where they hope to sign up 50 new donors who can provide $50 a month to help pay for meals.
It is much needed, Sass said, everything is run by the organization’s volunteers, which number close to 500.
The program has one part-time employee, but all donations go to pay for food and food only, Sass said.
HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM
During World War II, the first organized nutrition program was born in England.
Due to the blitz of German planes on Britain, many people lost their homes and therefore their ability to prepare meals for themselves and their families.
The Women’s Volunteer Service for Civil Defense began serving meals to their disadvantaged neighbors and servicemen.
They served these meals in canteens that became known as “Meals on Wheels”.
After the war, the program came to America.
It began as a “small experiment” by several women in Philadelphia, who served meals to seven of their elderly neighbors.
In Kingsport, the program started at a church.
Dr. Richard “Dick” Slyman, minister of the Bethany Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, heard about the program and in 1972 began recruiting women to begin this type of service.
Sandy Hudson, Dean Rumgay and Linda Frye were the main organizers for Meals on Wheels in Kingsport.
The three women, including a few others they recruited, approached many churches and service organizations to generate interest in coordinating a program to cook and deliver meals to impaired Kingsport residents and to help with funding, all while preparing and delivering meals to others from their own kitchens.
“When they started out, it was just a handful of people cooking meals out of their homes,” Sass said.
Meals on Wheels of Kingsport was incorporated in 1973.
At first meals were only delivered twice a week. Waverly Road Presbyterian Church donated the use of its kitchen in 1974 and meal delivery quickly rose to five days a week.
In 1985, a second kitchen located in the Dickson School Building was added to meet the growing demand.
The second kitchen relocated to First Presbyterian Church in 2001.
Meals on Wheels of Kingsport has grown and serves over 200 hot meals are served each weekday. To date, 2 million meals to have been delivered to recipients in Kingsport.
THE STORIES
Every volunteer and worker has their own story with Meals on Wheels.
Sass and her husband started delivering meals in 1998.
Agner said she attended Bethany Presbyterian Church and started helping in 1972 at the very start.
She was a driver with three children and took them with her on her routes. The mission was simple, she said.
“We felt like there were some hungry people in Kingsport,” she said.
Later on, her husband started helping her deliver meals as well. Now, she is 80 years old and he is 85.
“We’re still delivering meals to this day,” she said.
David Reames, cook, board member and Waverly Road Presbyterian Church coordinator, said he has his own story.
“I volunteer because I know first-hand the difference these meals make for people who need them,” he said. “My mother was able to live in her home longer due to Meals on Wheels.”
Dave Lunceford, immediate past board president and driver coordinator for Waverly Road Presbyterian kitchen, was also touched personally. He started in 2014 after his wife of 49 years passed away and he retired.
He found a new family by helping with Meals on Wheels.
“All I can say is that volunteers are a blessing to our recipients but experience tells me that volunteers receive a true and lasting blessing from their time they give to others,” he said.
Brenda Overbey, Meals on Wheels program administrative coordinator, said she began working with group in 2005.
“Our program mission really has not changed in 50 years as there continues to be a need in the community for home-delivered meal service,” she said.
For Agner, she said she knows there is one reason that she keeps doing what she does and volunteering. She gets emotional sometimes as she talks about her work for Meals on Wheels.
But there is a reason.
“When I stand before my Savior, Jesus Christ, I will be able to say, ‘I tried to feed your children,’” she said.
Leave a Reply