Fluvanna Meals on Wheels Rescues Client

Fluvanna Meals on Wheels volunteers delivering a meal may have saved a client’s life on one of the hottest June days of the summer. When they pulled into the driveway, they heard June Dudley screaming for help in the backyard. They discovered her inside a storage container. The volunteers rushed to open the doors, got her inside her house, placed a fan on her and got her a glass of water to help cool her down.

Mrs. Dudley said that she had been stuck inside the container for about an hour when the volunteers found her. She found a broom stick in the container and placed it through an opening at the bottom of the door. Mrs. Dudley said, “I knew I had to save my voice for when the Meals on Wheels volunteers came to deliver my meal”. Miraculously, without even hearing the volunteers pull into the driveway, she started to yell when they were walking up to her front door.

Mrs. Dudley has had the storage container in her backyard for over 20 years and has gone inside of it hundreds of times. She said it’s even closed on her before, but the doors have never locked. Over the years, the ground has eroded under the container, and it’s now at just the right angle for the lock to click when the doors slammed shut.

Mrs. Dudley is so grateful for FMOW and their volunteers. She says, “I continue to receive meals not only because I enjoy the food, but because I get to see and talk to a friendly face. Sometimes, the volunteers are the only person I see that day.” If it wasn’t for the FMOW volunteers, who knows when June would’ve been found. FMOW is more than just a meal, it’s the welfare check their clients receive each day when their meal is delivered.