Meals on Wheels of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky is fueled by a diverse collective of partners and supporters who care deeply about our region’s older adults. Our mission is to deliver essential services that promote seniors’ independence and well-being. One of the largest groups who helps us drive that mission is our volunteer community. 

We employ production and distribution team members, but we cannot do this important work without the support of our volunteers. This dedicated group of 5,000+ people plays a critical role in making meaningful impact on the nearly 11,000 seniors we reach every year throughout our 13-county footprint (eight counties in Kentucky and five in Ohio). 

If you are a business leader, organizational leader or people manager, we invite you to partner with Meals on Wheels and bring your teams to our facility to volunteer on behalf of our mission.

Volunteer Activities and Engagement with Meals on Wheels

Assembling Snack Boxes

With every weekly delivery, our home-delivered meals clients receive a snack box of shelf-stable food to enjoy between meals. Think: crackers, fruit, juice boxes and the like. This activity is our biggest need, and our volunteers assembled 260,000 boxes in 2025. 

Packing Pet Food

Seniors overwhelmingly agree their cat or dog brings happiness and comfort to their lives. Clients who receive home-delivered meals and also care for a cat or dog can enroll in our pet support program and they will receive nutritious pet food with their regular meal deliveries. Fast fact: 100 percent of our pet food is packed by volunteers! 

Organizing Meals for Distribution

Over 4,000 meals head out the door from our production facility every single weekday. Clients can choose from a selection of 50+ menu choices, and we offer menus tailored to dietary needs as well. We rely greatly on volunteers’ support in filling those orders and organizing them for delivery—especially because demand for our services will keep growing. 

Creating Birthday Bags

Everyone deserves a happy birthday, and one of our drivers’ favorite parts of the job is delivering birthday bags to seniors at home. Bags are decorated by hand and each one includes a birthday card, a snack, a handheld game and everyday hygiene products. Birthday bags can be made at our production facility or in your office. 

Hosting a Hygiene Product Drive

Help us fill all those birthday bags with useful goods our clients can use! Similar to a canned food drive, you and your team can collect a variety of toiletries at your office and bring them to our facility to be packed. Our volunteer management team can get you a list of ideal items. 

Supporting Senior Center Activities

For teams who enjoy games, holidays or making an event out of the everyday, visiting our OTR Senior Center or one of our senior residence partners is an enjoyable option. Our longstanding partners Sam Adams Brewery regularly hosts unique experiences with our seniors, like casino day pictured above. 

How Teams Make it a Fun Experience 

Corporate give-back days and community engagement days are truly win-win opportunities for Meals on Wheels and our volunteer partners. The research shows us why: Corporate social responsibility initiatives strengthen employee engagement, workplace culture, recruitment and retention, productivity and investment in the company mission. From our perspective, we see firsthand how much teams enjoy a break from their daily operations and welcome new ways to support their own community. Here’s what we see the most from our corporate volunteers.

Team-Building

Working together on meaningful tasks requires collaboration, communication and respect. It also gives team members a chance to develop or explore leadership skills, practical skills and soft skills they can translate to their roles. 

Bragging Rights

A little friendly competition can go along way when you’re serving a mission. Challenge your departments to go head to head over how many snack boxes they can assemble or how quickly they can fill pet food bags. Maybe there’s a volunteer trophy or special award you can present to the winners! 

Play DJ

Bring in some speakers and create a playlist to keep up the energy!

Direct Service Impact

Nonprofit workers often experience what we call “mission moments” in our roles, in which we have the chance to see our collective work make its intended impact. Volunteering with Meals on Wheels gives corporate teams and private-sector organizations the chance to have their own mission moments. Every single snack box and handmade birthday bag touches someone’s life, and you get to be a part of that. 

We Can Customize an Experience for your Group

If you’ve got the heart to drive the Meals on Wheels mission, we’ve got a way for you to volunteer. We stay flexible with your schedule, welcome new ideas, accommodate virtual opportunities, brainstorm ways to make it fun—but most importantly, we appreciate the time and energy you take in helping us serve our seniors. 

View more details about our volunteer program here. To get started, connect with Meals on Wheels’ Volunteer Manager Tammy Lawson Hitchcock at 513-244-0668 or thitchcock@muchmorethanameal.org