Callaway Cares launches Feed Callaway Seniors to help homebound seniors

People can donate money at C&R Market's customer service desk that will go toward providing local homebound seniors with the items they need. This is part of Callaway Cares' Feed Callaway Seniors program, and those interested can also donate money on the organization's Facebook page.
People can donate money at C&R Market's customer service desk that will go toward providing local homebound seniors with the items they need. This is part of Callaway Cares' Feed Callaway Seniors program, and those interested can also donate money on the organization's Facebook page.

April Redman made a promise and intends to keep it.

Callaway Cares, a nonprofit organization that considers itself a "support group for the community," launched a program two months ago to distribute food and basic necessities to homebound local seniors called Feed Callaway Seniors. Its president, Redman, noticed how much local seniors were in need of assistance from her personal experience.

Redman said she used to work at the Callaway Senior Center, and her grandmother had to live in a nursing home after breaking a hip. Her grandmother eventually died, but not before Redman promised her to help seniors stay in their own homes as long as they can. While she knows that nursing homes do their best, Redman said seniors generally still want to live on their own.

"Everybody always wants to stay in their own home as long as they can," Redman said. "Part of that is making sure that they have their basic necessities met while they're at home. Our biggest focus with this program is just like a lot of other senior meal programs is we want to try to provide them food to where they don't have to leave their homes."

She said she partnered with C&R Market and manager Jay Hickman, who has been a good partner in the organization's past work helping seniors, to make it so the public could donate shelf-stable food like soup or boxed food, paper products like toilet paper, cleaning supplies and any other items people could spare.

Redman said Callaway Cares also has an account set up at the store so people could donate money at the store's customer service desk or through the Callaway Cares Facebook page. There is a donate button on the page, she said, and people can also leave a description on how they want their donated money used.

The money that goes toward Feed Callaway Seniors is turned into gift cards so seniors who want assistance can call the store and order what they need. The store will then deliver the items to the seniors' houses. Redman said this process ensures the money is going directly into helping the seniors and cuts out the middle man as the grocery store already offers delivery services.

At the front of C&R Market, Redman said there is a cart with a poster that explains what the program does and how the donated money is used. People can drop items in the cart and then Callaway Cares divvies them up among the seniors who have asked the organization for help.

"Oftentimes, seniors have lots of medications and expenses like that, and they are on a fixed income," Redman said. "So it makes buying the little things very tough, especially if they're paying for home health aid and things like that out of their Medicare. It's my goal to be able to provide seniors with at least one meal a day."

Redman said she would like to see the program gain some momentum as they have given out two gift cards in the first two months of the program. She said they have given these cards out before to 10-12 seniors using money donated to the organization at Christmas and have helped seniors in any way possible since September in an unofficial capacity but would love to see more assistance in the future.

As far as how long Redman would like to continue this program, she said Callaway Cares intends to run it indefinitely and hopes to keep it going as long as people are willing to participate.

"There's always going to be a need," she said. "There's always going to be somebody that's messaging me saying that they need help. So long as I'm capable, and my board members support this, so long as we're capable of helping in any way, shape or form, we will help to the best of our ability."

If people want to know more about Feed Callaway Seniors or have any questions about items to donate or anything else about program, Redman said they can message the Callaway Cares Facebook page or send an email to [email protected].