ODESSA, Texas — When you're a senior living on a fixed income, it can be tough making ends meet.
That's why Meals on Wheels of Odessa and the Junior League of Odessa, Inc. have launched a Silver Pantry. It gives seniors access to the essentials they need.
After a few months of planning, the Junior League's vision has come to life.
"The Junior League of Odessa has been so good about projects in Odessa to help the community for over 75 years," said Craig Stoker, Executive Director of Meals on Wheels of Odessa. "They approached us with just kind of a brainstorming session about what? What could the league do to help your clients?"
From there the Silver Pantry was born at Meals on Wheels.
"We're really proud of this partnership, we are," said Mallory Langford, President of Junior League of Odessa. "We've come together to provide shelf stable products, pantry products and incontinence products to our older Odessans who are some of our most vulnerable population here in our community."
The pantry will have the typical things you find in a pantry that some people with low income might struggle to afford.
Stoker explained the variety of items that will be included like supplemental nutritional drinks, incontinence supplies, cleaning supplies and hygiene supplies like toothpaste, deodorant and soap.
The inspiration for this project came from a previous pantry created by the league, the Pink Pantry.
The Pink Pantry is a partnership with communities and schools that makes products available to students in secondary school within ECISD.
"It started out as just feminine hygiene products, but this year we've expanded it to just all hygiene products because not just our female students need hygiene products," Langford said. "We've expanded it to provide shampoo and conditioner, combs, body wash, deodorant, all the things that teenagers might need."
Both Meals on Wheels and Junior League saw a great need in their community, so they decided to do something about it.
"Our impact area is poverty, so we are looking for ways to impact help, support various populations of at-risk community members, whether it's children, young adults, older Odessans, whoever it might be," Langford said.
The goal for this project is to help make Odessans' days and nights a little easier one product at a time.
The Silver Pantry is fully functional, and Meals on Wheels will have their annual forms go out to see what it is that the community needs the most and they hope to partner with other agencies to stock the shelves with those items. In the meantime, you are more than welcome to stop by and donate products that could be of use to someone else.