SAN ANGELO, Texas — Dason Tucker, the new executive director for Meals For The Elderly, is no stranger to San Angelo and he said he is excited to be back home.
“Once I saw this opportunity become available at Meals For The Elderly, I had to jump on it,” Tucker said. “Both my wife and myself are San Angelo natives. Grew up here. My parents moved here when I was about six months and moved here from Amarillo. From there, I attended school here. I graduated from San Angelo central in 2007 and left to go study at Texas Christian University and later on at Texas A&M.”
In May 2013, Tucker worked full time with the Dallas YMCA and more recently, the San Antonio YMCA.
“Once I saw the opportunity become available for Meals for the Elderly, I had to jump on it,” Tucker said.
Tucker grew up volunteering at the nonprofit.
“Starting around the age of 6, my mom would drive myself and all my brothers around every summer to drive and pass out meals. So it’s an organization that really got my foot in the door into working with nonprofits,” Tucker said.
The nonprofit organization serves roughly 680-700 community members ages 65 and up each weekday, one meal at a time.
“It can also be those who may be homebound due to a medical condition,” Tucker said. “We want to make sure they are taking care of as well. But they make up a small minority of our client base.”
The meals that are distributed total out to approximately 3,400 meals per week, according to Tucker.
“That is close to just under 89,000 meals that are going to be going out in a year,” Tucker said. “Right now, we serve all of the San Angelo community as well as the towns of Christoval, Miles, Carlsbad.”
Tucker said right now no particular new programs are in the works, however, he did mention his broader goals as the new executive director.
“We look to expand and reach out to some of those underserved and more rural communities in our immediate areas,” Tucker said.
He is also planning to continue to provide emergency kits for their clients.
“Emergency kits consist of shelf-stable food items. It can be canned soups and canned goods. Those are helping ensure that should we be unable to provide services for a certain day in the year. When it’s unsafe for our volunteers to go out and deliver, our clients are still going to have some type of meal available to them for that day,” Tucker said.
Overall, Tucker is excited about this new role.
“I’m extremely excited to be joining a great and long-lasting organization here in the San Angelo community,” Tucker said.
Tucker also mentioned he is looking into ways to better serve clients by continuing to improve meals, expand the organization's reach and add additional services that are currently not being provided at this time.
He and his team will be speaking with clients to see what they want to see in the months ahead.
