Byesville Rotary learns Senior Citizens Center and Rotary share similar goals

Pictured: Shon Gress, Executive Director Guernsey County Senior Center, and Oziel Jeffries, Byesville Rotary President.

Reading for Oct. 30: October Rotarian--"Discover Lisbon," p. 30.

 Byesville Rotary is interested in reducing hunger in Guernsey County. Club members sponsor an annual Christmas food basket program which insures that families in the Rolling School district will have food for the holidays. The club also provides monthly donations to the food pantry sponsored by the Main Avenue United Methodist Church in Byesville.

Shon Gress’s goal as Executive Director of the Guernsey County Senior Center is to insure that every homebound senior citizen age 60 and over has a hot meal delivered to his or her home Monday through Friday. Gress reported that in 2011, the Meals on Wheels program delivered over 133,000 meals to Guernsey County seniors.

In addition to providing meals, the program also provides potentially life-saving safety checks for homebound seniors. Staff delivering meals can verify seniors are healthy, have not fallen and/or identify potential health hazards such as gas leaks.

He explained that meals can be customized to meet individual needs such as low-fat, non-gluten, vegetarian, or diabetic meals. Meals on Wheels can also provide frozen meals to be eaten by seniors on week-ends.

Gress pointed out that in recent years the Meals on Wheels program has faced funding challenges. Government support in Ohio for the program has stagnated or decreased. At the same time, costs for food, gas, utilities, and labor have increased.

Gress is asking that the local community support the Meals on Wheels program by approving a five year .5mil levy. The passage of this levy will insure that the Senior Citizens Center can continue to provide hot, nutritious, home delivered meals to senior citizens. Additionally, the levy will enable Gress to expand the Meals on Wheels service to include providing home delivered meals to disabled veterans of any age who live in Guernsey County. Gress stated that at this time there is no state or federal program that supplies meals to disabled vets.
In other club business, Sharon Miller introduced Meadowbrook Interact student John Barba who attended the club meeting. The Meadowbrook Interact club will sponsor a dance at Meadowbrook on Saturday, October 27. Students are encouraged to wear costumes. Miller invited Rotary club members to attend the dance. Club members are needed to judge the Halloween costume contest that will be held at the dance.

The club meets 7:30 am every Tuesday at the Stop Nine Senior Center at 60313 (GPS use 60299) Southgate Road, Byesville. Anyone interested in learning more about the Byesville Rotary can call Membership Chairs Marty Patchen, 740-685-3828, or Evelyn Spring, 740-439-4343.