SeniorAge providing meals for seniors during coronavirus crisis

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. SeniorAge serves 17 counties and 36 senior centers in the Ozarks with a wide variety of programs and services.

But in places like Springfield's South Side Senior Center on Freemont, the swirling ceiling fans now serve as a silent sentinel over empty rooms once crowed with folks over age 60 enjoying each other's company and sharing good times and hot meals.

"For a lot of them this is their life," said Teena Jacobs, a cook at the center. "They're retired. They don't have families to come see 'em. This is the only place they have to go. This is like family."

But the coronavirus has taken all that away and threatened to thin their ranks as the center is currently closed and concerns are rampant among the age group that is most at-risk of dying from the virus.

"We have a group of card players who come in and we jokingly call them the Knights of the Round Table," Jacobs said. "One of them mentioned on our last Friday, 'We don't know when this opens up again if we'll see each other. Who's going to be left?' That broke my heart."

But even though the senior center is closed the work still goes on to feed those in need as all the SeniorAge centers are handing out drive-thru frozen meals or delivering food to those who can't get it themselves.

"In one year alone we serve over a million meals," said Juli Jordan, SeniorAge Marketing and Development Director. "Last week we served over 20,000 extra meals than we normally would produce."

But that's only one vital thing SeniorAge is helping with as they also provide telephone reassurance calls to do wellness checks and see if there's anything the senior might need.

In addition SeniorAge has partnered with the ride share service CarGo to offer rides to doctor's appointments, grocery stores, and other essential places for seniors who have no transportation of their own.

They also offer a new text alert system that covers a wide variety of subjects.

"Current scams, emergency situations, or just need to know information for seniors such as tax information," Jordan said. "A lot of people are inquiring about taxes right now."

The meals are made possible by donations so if you'd like to help you can go to www.senioragemo.org and if you have any questions overall you can call SeniorAge at 417-862-0762.

Back at the South Side Senior Center a tree with Easter decorations has been put up in the main meeting room as a reminder of hopefully brighter days ahead.

But Jacobs worries that not everyone will be around when the center finally reopens.

"I'm afraid it's going to have a mental effect on a lot of people," she said. "We have a lot of veterans. Old veterans. And when we lose them, it's so sad. I'm afraid a lot of those won't come back."

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