Elizabeth Grace has seen the growing needs of seniors in Northeast Tarrant County in her four years as the executive director of Serving Our Seniors.

The nonprofit is based in Richland Hills and provides services to seniors in 11 cities in the county, including Southlake, Grapevine, Keller and Colleyville.

The three main needs that Serving Our Seniors provides is transportation, minor home repairs and social outreach.

Grace said she sees the needs of those 65 and older each day and then works to help navigate those situations. She noted the nonprofit provides annual home safety checks through volunteer work and recalled one incident where they learned a senior had a broken hot water heater and had been without hot water for more than a year.

Grace said that the senior didn’t have the financial strength to replace it and navigated her living situation by boiling water and going to a neighbor’s house for a hot shower.


“Some seniors barely have money for food and there’s a transportation piece of it, too, but God forbid something major happens,” Grace said. “It can be challenging.”
How we got here

Serving Our Seniors was established in 1981 with a $60 budget for two social workers, Beth Cochran and Mari Donaldson. The two used office space at Richland Hills United Methodist Church to buy phones and started to make calls to help get needed items for seniors, according to the nonprofit's website.

The nonprofit was named Mid-Cities Care Corps but the name was changed in 2022 to reflect the help to other areas surrounding Hurst, Euless and Bedford, Grace said.

What they’re saying


Grace said that more than 900 seniors use at least one of their three services, but she often has to work with other nonprofit partners, such as Meals On Wheels of Tarrant County, to help meet needs.

“There is not enough organizations out there doing what we're doing,” Grace said. “There are other nonprofits that touch on it, but not to the degree that we do. There's just not a ton of resources out there for seniors; out of sight, out of mind, so we just don't think about it. SOS would really be a wonderful organization to be in every city.”