Meals on Wheels hosts fundraiser at Leander VFW

Businesses including Dell, Costco and Smokey Mo's also donated to the event, he said.

The Bagdad Activity Center is the Leander site for Meals on Wheels and serves Leander, Cedar Park and Liberty Hill. Leander site leader Denise Schilli said that each six-dollar meal purchased at the event would provide a hot meal to one senior citizen in the Leander area, turning the $5,000 raised into about 830 meals for residents aged 60 or older.

"That money will go a long way in feeding our seniors," Schilli said.

In addition, Schilli said the funds would help provide various games and activities for senior citizens at the Bagdad Activity Center located at 351 N. Bagdad Road, Leander. The site is one of six congregate centers in Williamson and Burnet counties that provides both on-site and delivered meals to senior citizens, Stutzman said.

At the congregate centers, professionals cook meals and serve them on-site or deliver them to seniors who have limited mobility or who are unable to cook for themselves, Stutzman said.

"Although donations are accepted, senior citizens are not charged for these services, and no clients are ever turned away because of an inability to pay," he said.

In 2013, Meals on Wheels served 144,000 meals at congregate sites and through home deliveries, Stutzman said.

As a program administered by Williamson-Burnet County Opportunities, Meals on Wheels serves about 1,200 senior citizens weekdays in Williamson and Burnet counties through donations, and federal and state funding, according to the WBC Opportunities website.

WBC Opportunities also oversees senior centers in Round Rock, Georgetown, Taylor, Burnet and Marble Falls and administers Head Start, emergency assistance and affordable housing programs, according to the WBC Opportunities website.

Meals on Wheels, Bagdad Activity Center, 351 N. Bagdad Road, Leander, 512-259-0288, www.wbco.net