Hellen Prichard's delivery route on an overcast December day included several stops in northern Winston-Salem and a hot meal with ham, carrots, rice, bread, milk, orange juice and a cookie.
For Prichard, little had changed since 1962, when she helped start the local Meals on Wheels program, which has fed countless homebound seniors in Forsyth County. But this time around, she stayed in the passenger seat, and her personal aide did the driving and delivering.
"I thought, 'Well, I'd like to give it a go again. I know friends in similar situations (with an aide). If I do it, I think I can convince them to do it, too," Prichard said.
The seniors receiving meals that day didn't know that Prichard was one of the founders. They were just thankful. James Jones, for example has been a Meals on Wheels recipient for three years, he said. Sitting in his room, he said he had a hard time moving around because he had fluid in his knees.
"If anybody is in the same boat that I am in, then they'd know that they'd love this program," said Jones, 68.
Nearly 50 years ago, Meals on Wheels was sealed with a simple conversation between Thomasine Hayes and Prichard, both members of Wake Forest Baptist Church, she said.
"We had to start from the bottom and had to plan the whole thing," Prichard said. "Thomasine said, 'I thought it was so good (an idea) that I didn't want to pass it up, but I didn't want to do it unless you helped me. So, if you'll help me, let's do it.' And I said, 'I'd love to.' "
A small army of volunteers now delivers meals each weekday to about 1,200 seniors throughout Forsyth County. Prichard was among the volunteers this month, having re-enlisted when she heard that Senior Services is trying to recruit 100 volunteers.
The national Meals on Wheels program was started in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy's administration.
Prichard and her friend, Hayes, delivered the first meals that summer to homebound seniors, and they ran the program through Wake Forest Baptist Church before Senior Services Inc. took over in the late 1970s.
Hayes and Prichard recruited volunteers, prepared meals at the church and made deliveries. Since 1962, the program has provided more than 4.6 million meals, according to Senior Services.
Prichard's return was inspiring, said Richard Gottlieb, the president and chief executive of Senior Services, adding that Senior Services aims to keep the standards that Prichard and Hayes set all those years ago.
"It gave us goose bumps!" Gottlieb said in an email. "We refer to Hellen as the Mother of the Meals-on-Wheels program."
As of mid-December, the recruitment initiative that brought Prichard back out had led to 98 new volunteers, said Leslie Smith, the volunteer coordinator.
"We could use 100 more," she said.
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