A recent nacho luncheon at the Clay Jones Community Building raised $2,100 for the Bryan County Retired Senior Volunteer (RSVP) program.
Sheri Schulze, executive director of RSVP, said the funds will help the organization continue with Meals on Wheels, the commodity supplement food program box and medical transportation for senior citizens at no charge.
“Right now, they didn’t release the federal funds until really late because of the government shutdown and so we’re going to have a gap in funding for April, May and June,” Schulze said. “So, we have to come up with funds on our own to operate those months.”
According to Schulze, this is a competition grant year and their grant ends on March 31 and if RSVP is awarded the grant, they will receive the funds on Aug. 1.
“There’s going to be three months for sure that we have to come up with funds on our own,” Schulze said.
RSVP was founded in 1973 and if funding does not continue, it will have to close its doors, according to Schulze.
She said RSVP provides many important programs to help senior citizens.
“We do Meals on Wheels every day, we do about 300 of those a month,” Schulze said. “We do our commodity supplement food program boxes for low-income seniors through the Oklahoma Regional Food Bank. We do about 216 of those every month.”
The food program is for 35-pound boxes of shelf-stable food for low-income qualifying senior citizens who fill out an application to be a part of the program, according to Schulze.
“We do those the third week of every month we distribute those, and we do volunteer opportunities,” Schulze said. “We have volunteers in all of the senior centers throughout Bryan County. At the Ron Cross Senior Center, Calera, Colbert, Wade-Albany and Bokchito.”
RSVP has about 240 volunteers, according to Schulze.
“We just need donation funds to keep us going to keep our operations so we can keep doing what we do, serving the community,” she said.
