Charles Warner|Daily Times Nancy Smith, a cook at Wallace Thomson Hospital, put trays of hot meals in the box brought by Meals on Wheels volunteer Gerry Benard. The meals, which were prepared in the hospital's kitchen, are delivered by the volunteers to needy residents in the Union community.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Ken Chewning begins getting the cups of milk, juice, and desserts provided by Wallace Thomson Hospital for Meals on Wheels. Chewning and his fellow volunteers deliver meals prepared by the hospital to Union area residents while other volunteers deliver food prepared by Midway BBQ to Buffalo area residents.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Meals on Wheels volunteer Jim Stepp delivers a meal to Rose Beacham earlier this week. Stepp and his fellow volunteers deliver meals to residents in the Union and Buffalo areas Monday through Friday.

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UNION — They delivered more than 26,000 meals in 2012 and the Union County Meals on Wheels volunteers are delivering meals to the needy of the Union and Buffalo areas this year but need the help of the community to continue doing so.

In a report released this week, the Meals on Wheels board announced that they’d recently met for a recap of their efforts in 2012. The 60-65 volunteer drivers delivered 26,155 meals or more than 2,000 per month to the residents of the 11 delivery routes in the Union and Buffalo served by the organization. The number of meals delivered in 2012 also includes meals delivered to two daycare operations the group provides assistance to.

The deliveries, which are made Monday through Friday, begin at Wallace Thomson Hospital and Midway BBQ which provide the group with the hot meals and other food items at reduced cost.

Meals on Wheels Chairperson Lynn Mornane said the success of the program is due to to the hard work of its volunteers and the generosity of its supporters. She said it speaks well of the community that the program has received the support it has over the years.

“It’s an amazing feat that we do all this with volunteers, it is completely volunteer-based,” Mornane said. “If you figure 2,000 meals a month all done by volunteer drivers with Midway and Wallace Thomson giving us such a break on the food preparation, without that we couldn’t have done it. Coming from a place like Miami, I don’t think people living in this community understand what a wonderful community this is to live in.”

Despite the efforts of the volunteers and generosity of Wallace Thomson and Midway as well financial supporters like Broad River Electric, Timken, Bi-Lo and various private donors, Mornane said that raising the $80,000 the group paid for the food it served last year has been difficult. She said there is a growing need for the group’s services and the cost will likely increase accordingly.

“Without future donations matching those rising costs and rising needs we fear for this program,” Mornane said. “We hope to see our community to get more involved and more donations and honorariums made.”

Mornane said that the people who receive meals from the group pay what they can, but the group does not turn down anyone if they can’t pay. She said that is why community support and the donations and honorariums generated by that support are so important.

“We are not government-funded,” Mornane said. “All of this is community-supported.”

Donations for Meals on Wheels should be sent to Union Meals on Wheels, P.O. Box 951, Union, S.C.

For more information contact Lynn Mornane at 427-7974 or Kathy and Jim Stepp at 427-1598.

Editor Charles Warner can be reached at 864-427-1234, ext. 14, or by email at cwarner@civitasmedia.com.