Meals On Wheels Now Delivering Food In Bixby

The need for the program is growing as more people from the area are retiring. 

Volunteers bring a pre-packaged meal to the front door and check on the resident daily or a few days per week. They are always looking for additional volunteers to make the service possible and donations to help the elderly and disabled homebound.

It's Jim Campbell's first day on the job, volunteering with Meals On Wheels. He's making history as it's the first time the program has expanded in three decades.

At the North Heights Church of Christ, volunteers pick up the meals that need to be taken out to the community. Campbell will volunteer two times a month dropping off warm meals to neighbors.

Campbell hopes he'll develop a relationship with the people he drops food off to and become friends with them.

"It's going to be a learning experience like anything else," he said. "Hopefully, I'll get better and better at it as time goes by."

Mary Esparaza is on his route. She moved from Tulsa to Bixby and got her first meal at her new home Monday.

"I think it's wonderful. It's really wonderful," she said. "It's really very, very nice because it's something I can look forward to and I really appreciate it. It's a big help."

Meals On Wheels operates on a $1 million budget, which is funded through donations.

The program's expansion into Bixby is a larger effort by the charity to recruit a thousand volunteers and serve more people in the Tulsa metro.

"I feel that people like myself often times need a little help in this perspective because we may not be able to get up and go cook or look for something to eat," Mary Esparaza said.

"There's a lot of people in need in this world, and I don't think we do enough to help them," said volunteer Jim Campbell