Alexander Cain
There’s someone out there in Baldwin County who needs your help.
Perhaps you know them. He or she is your next door neighbor, or maybe your former second-grade teacher, or your friend from high school.
Maybe even your mother or father.
When there’s a need for social comfort and food assistance in Baldwin County, Meals on Wheels takes to the streets and highways to ensure that each person who needs a warm, caring smile, a hand to hold or a moment of reassurance receives all of those gestures and more.
“Our local chapter was started by Fred and Colleen Schramn from Hope Lutheran Church,” Baldwin County Meals on Wheels volunteer Leona Schilling said. “Right now I’ve just finished my third time with involvement with the organization. The first time I did it, they had just started and I ended up as treasurer. I started delivering meals with my husband, and I did that for five years.”
Meals on Wheels originated in Great Britain during World War II when the destruction common to the time caused many affected by the war to lose the ability to cook their own food.
The Women’s Volunteer Service, or WVS, prepared and delivered food to those in need during that troublesome time. Delivery was by cart or bicycle, and thus the name “Meals on Wheels” was born.
It was in 1975 when those first hot meals and sincere smiles were delivered to local residents, and in the 33 years since then the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Georgia College & State University and local churches and other non-profit organizations have stepped up to volunteer to meet and greet the clients that Meals on Wheels assists.
One person in Baldwin County who could tell all about those clients and the grateful looks in their eyes after seeing a Meals on Wheels volunteer pull into a driveway is Nina Veal, who recently turned 100 years old, and has spent more than 30 years involved with the Baldwin County Chapter of Meals on Wheels.
Veal stayed speechless for most of the day when she was thrown a birthday celebration by more than 400 friends and family at La Fete Sunday — but the words of those currently involved with Meals on Wheels did more than enough to make up for her loss for words.
“I just want to thank you for all you have done and all you have meant to us at Meals on Wheels,” former Baldwin County Meals on Wheels volunteer and agency director Ken Jasnau said as he stood beside Veal.
Current Meals on Wheels director Carl Enchelmayer was also present for Veal’s birthday celebration, and provided his own thoughts on her dedication to the agency (she was a driver for them until age 94 when her eyes began bothering her) and of the organization’s impact on Baldwin County.
“I think one of the key things about this is that people who have been involved in Meals on Wheels for years are still supporting the organization. It’s like a big family,” Enchelmayer said. “I’m especially proud of Nina, because when you have senior citizens or the elderly volunteering in a project such as this, you continue the traditions and values that they have brought forward from the beginning. We have quite a strong community involvement with Meals on Wheels in Milledgeville now.”
It’s that community support and the impact that is left behind on the clients served by the non-profit organization that have kept Schilling coming back to assist whenever the opportunity has been presented.
“We do the route for Sacred Heart Catholic Church. We go all over the place. We really enjoy doing it more than they enjoy receiving their meals. I’d definitely say it’s a benefit to Baldwin County and I feel like we take so much out of Baldwin County for this. It just makes you feel so good,” Schilling said.
