Page 30 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2017 - Online Magazine

KEEPING IT LOCAL

“While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier
because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now
because our neighbors are so many.” ~Lady Bird Johnson

Have you ever heard the story of the North remain at home and independent, well fed, with
Platte Canteen in North Platte, Nebraska? For the services that fit their needs. Because of the
five years, between 1941 and 1946, “volunteers wisdom of our board, the people that we serve
welcomed every single troop train that came don’t have to worry that budget cuts during
through North Platte with something good to a legislative session may impact their ability
eat and words of encouragement," Bob Greene to stay in their own home. Our supporters
wrote in his book, Once Upon a Town: The believe that helping those who need help in our
Miracle of the North Platte Canteen. "More than community makes us all stronger. It’s just what
55,000 volunteers from 125 communities in we do.
Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado came to help."
By 1946, North Platte had nurtured 6 million
soldiers on their way to war—and on their
way home, too. Years later, the North Platte
Telegraph published part of a thank you note
written by a soldier. "To think that you people,
to whom we all were strangers, would do all
you did for us," he wrote. You "showed us that
this was the real America, this is what we had
fought and worked for and wanted to come
back to."
This story is real, and it is about the real
America. I’m lucky enough that I get to see
people caring for others, individuals working
together for the common good, on a daily basis.
It is because of this caring spirit in the “real”
Lubbock, Texas that in 1981, Lubbock Meals on
Wheels Board of Directors chose not to receive
any more government funding. Since 1981, our
important decisions are all made locally by
people who live in the community and will feel
the impact of their decisions. It is because of
the citizens in our community that we are now
able to help over 700 people, each weekday,

30 Lubbock Senior Link