SENIOR NUTRITION PROGRAM MARKS 25 YEARS

Senior citizens from across Southeast Missouri filled the Show Me Center Thursday to celebrate 25 years of the senior nutrition program, which has grown over the years into much more than an opportunity by which seniors are just provided a hot meal.

Nutrition programs across the region also offer a place for seniors to gather and socialize, discuss important issues, play games and make new acquaintances. For many, it is the only outlet they have from spending much of their time at home and alone.

The nutrition program was started to improve the health of older Americans by providing one hot meal each day. The nutrition program is one of many services offered to senior citizens that is administered by the Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging.

The federal program in the region started in October 1975 when Chaffee Senior Center opened. Twelve others opened that first year, and the Cape Girardeau Senior Center came into being in April 1976. The program today has expanded to 38 regional nutrition centers in Southeast Missouri that average more than 5,000 hot meals daily to seniors.

Seniors need not go to the centers to eat. Most also provide in-home meals to those who are unable to leave their homes.

The nutrition program is particularly important to those who live alone. To many of those seniors, the center provides the only full hot meal they get because they do not bother to or can't cook for themselves.

And transportation to and from the centers is no problem since the centers operate their own shuttle services. For Thursday's Silver Jubilee Celebration, many of the approximately 2,000 seniors who attended traveled to and from Cape Girardeau in vehicles operated by the centers in their respective regions.

It didn't take long for word of the centers to spread. The network of regional centers in Southeast Missouri is the largest of 10 such programs across Missouri. The Southeast Missouri Centers serve more people than nutrition programs in St. Louis and Kansas City combined.

That shows that in the short 25 years they have been in operation there is a real need for nutrition programs. They should be around to meet needs of aged citizens for a long time.