Going strong Senior Center volunteer past 90, still passing out meals

Phillips Brown of Cape Girardeau has a bad back, an enlarged prostate and stent in his heart. Most days he feels pretty good and wishes everyone else could, too. He's been helping people feel a little better for more than a decade as a volunteer with the Cape Girardeau Senior Center, delivering meals to the homebound in Cape Girardeau and Scott City.

Brown turned 90 in April and had a surprise visit and party from his three daughters who live out of state. More than 100 friends at the Cape Girardeau Senior Center celebrated with Brown's family. The center has been a daily part of Brown's life since his wife died in 1996.

His daughters — Fleda, Michelle and Melinda — introduced him to the center soon after their mother died. He's been delivering meals ever since.

"I'm glad to do it," Brown said. Sometimes he drives the van, other times he runs meals up to elderly and disabled people.

"I prefer to do something people want done," he said. Many of the meal recipients have home health aides who help them remain independent. A delivered meal cuts down on shopping for groceries and the preparation of the meal itself. Bustling around in the kitchen usually isn't an option for the homebound patients. Just getting the items together to make a meal can be challenging for seniors with walkers, canes, oxygen or other assistive devices.

The benefits go both ways.

"If I lay around the house I have bad nasal congestion and that drives me nuts," Brown said.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Philliips Brown looked for the correct drawers for letters after changing the Senior Center menu Monday, August 25, 2008, in Cape Girardeau. Brown volunteers at the Senior Center in a variety of ways: deliving meals, running errands, and changing menus among them.

A typical day for Brown starts at 7 a.m., waking up without an alarm and sitting down to some oatmeal with prunes, juice and coffee.

Brown lays around until about 10 a.m. when it's time to arrive at the Cape Senior Center and load up the van to deliver meals. The planning and attention to detail are important to deliver more than 30 meals on time, within an hour and a half.

Once hot and cold coolers are loaded into the van, he heads out on his route. He brings a cell phone in case a meal recipient does not answer the door.

Brown has organized it so the order in which meals are dropped off is easy. When the van stops, he looks at the list and pulls the trays from the coolers to arrange in carrying crates in sequence by floor in apartments or by house number and streets. Brown knows the five Cape routes and one in Scott City turn by turn. Senior Center director Susan McClanahan can place Brown on any route she needs to fill in a pinch. Brown delivers at least twice a week but said he'd be glad to do it more often.

The retired Southeast Missouri State University economics professor is no stranger to activity.

"He rides his bike to the center every day," McClanahan said.

But Brown corrected her. "I ride my bike occasionally," he said. "That was a few years ago. I'm too lazy now."

Brown also changes the menu board at the center every day after getting back from homebound meal delivery. He runs errands after he gets a chance to eat lunch with his "sweetie," Lois Unfer, a companion he met at the center.

Unfer said a neighbor dragged her to the center after her husband died about 10 years ago. Unfer and Brown sat together one day and became acquainted, really reacquainted.

"I knew him years before. Everybody did. He rode a bike past my house on Bertling. He was a cyclist. He rode all over the city," Unfer said.

The couple used to walk nature trails and even sail together on the sailboat Brown built himself. The sailing trips have stopped because Unfer now depends on a walker for assistance. Instead, their days are spent together meeting at the Senior Center where they share a midday meal and stay to play games.

cpagano@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 133