We Deliver Smiles

Don & Shirley Wendling

Going “gentle” into retirement was not in the cards for Don and Shirley Wendling, Meals on Wheels volunteers since 2000. Don delivers meals every Thursday out of Highland Manor to neighborhoods around north Keystone. Shirley pitches in at fundraisers and special events. But besides all that, these sassy seniors participate in a breathless array of charitable and community activities.

Don and Shirley are volunteers for the Indianapolis Visitors Bureau, NCAA Final Four, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House, St. Augustine Home for the Aged and their church, St. Pius X.

The Wendlings have been to 25 elderhostels, including Houston, San Antonio, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Don has taught yoga for 32 years.

All of which raises the question: What did these two dynamos do before their so-called retirement? Don was in marketing at Mayflower Transit, Inc. and in sales at Hogan Mayflower for 42 years. Shirley ran her own real estate broker business and was homemaker to the couple’s five children.

As students at Butler University in 1954, Don and Shirley met at the Newman Center on campus when Don was just out of the U.S. Marine Corps and Shirley was an education major. After graduating from Butler, Shirley taught school until she began having children.

Now they have five grandchildren ranging in age from 5-14 years old, and for the past several years Don’s been taking those kids on his delivery route to show them the value of volunteer service: “It’s neat for them to see things they don’t usually see. The clients love to see them and it teaches the kids an important lesson about diversity,” said Don. “We wanted to expose them to people who don’t have a lot.”

Don noted it’s tough on volunteers when clients are suddenly dropped from the delivery list -- often to death, illness or admittance to a nursing home. They find themselves getting “very attached” to people on their route, said Don, who remembers a 96-year-old named Henry who was “So kindly, so glad to see me. He could hardly walk.”

“We like to be active,” said Shirley. “It’s so important for us to be able to give back.”

At Meals on Wheels, we’d say that’s an understatement!

For further details, please contact us at 317.633.6325, or by e-mail at info@mealsonwheelsindy.org.

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