How One Volunteer Built Decades of Connections Through Meals on Wheels

In 2005, after 26 years of teaching kindergarten, Sara Bealer, a mother of three and grandmother of seven, retired at the age of 54. Following a lifetime of nurturing young children, she had more to offer her community but wasn’t sure where to begin.

“I wanted to do something so I felt like I was giving back,” Sara says.

Volunteers Supporting Senior Health Make a Lasting Difference

She didn’t have to go far. “An old friend, who’d retired three or four years before me, said that he did Meals on Wheels and loved it,” Sara remembers. “He and his wife did it together. I decided that’s a great idea.” Twenty years later, she’s never looked back. She had to overcome some challenges, though, particularly finding her way before GPS-enabled navigation became available. Sara’s “horrible sense of direction” on her initial routes motivated her to bring a friend along. The decision helped her overcome her fear of getting lost.

“It was great fun,” Sara says. “I always tell people, ‘Get a friend, do it and then go out to lunch afterwards and make it a fun day.’” The fun and feeling of fulfillment haven’t diminished.

“I can’t imagine not having Meals on Wheels,” Sara admits. “It gives me more than I give them. I think about my clients all week.”

For Sara, who felt an immediate connection to Meals on Wheels’ mission, the seniors she visits feel more like adopted friends and family than clients. Since the beginning, she’s collected many memories and enduring relationships that began with a simple knock, question or hug.
“There’s one thing that’s almost [always] consistent: that they’re lonely,” Sara says of clients.

Clients like the kind veteran who served in George Patton’s platoon, the 91-year-old woman with a perfect memory and the 40-year-old woman with disabilities who dispelled myths about the profile of a Meals on Wheels client. “Sometimes Meals on Wheels helps the somewhat younger ones who can do nothing and desperately need the food,” Sara says. She believes the organization’s focus on the whole person makes their approach special. “I learned that each person is different, and for them, every week is different,” Sara says. “Someone I consider an extremely happy, fun and loving person may be in tears [on a given day].”

Those moments are when a kind word or taking extra time to sit with a senior becomes a powerful recognition of their humanity.

Spotting Warning Signs During Meal Deliveries

But it’s not just emotional changes that volunteers notice. Sara describes the early training that taught her to look for warning signs of hunger, abuse or health emergencies during meal delivery. “You could be the one person who finds out [a client] is having a stroke,” Sara says. The size of Meals on Wheels San Antonio’s waiting list is unimaginable to Sara, who knows firsthand the lifesaving role a volunteer can play in the life of a homebound senior, which extends beyond meal delivery.

“I always figured there were hundreds waiting,” Sara says. “I never dreamed it was 1,100. The fact that there are 1,100 people out there hungry and lonely breaks my heart.”

Sara, now 75, says she is in it for the long haul, “‘I intend to do Meals on Wheels until I can’t read my GPS.’”