Counting blessings

Dear Editor,

Thanksgiving! A beautiful time of the year to count our many, many blessings that we all have. We feel blessed (besides our personal blessings) that we live in McCook, a wonderful place in which to live and raise a family.

McCook has many things for which we can be thankful, including our many churches, a great school system, a junior college, a complete library, a beautiful museum, a huge hospital, a clinic with many doctors and nurses plus several specialists coming from other hospitals, a new armory for the National Guard, a daily newspaper, an airport, an abundance of downtown businesses privately owned, the Kiplinger arena for many activities, a wonderful YMCA with activities for all ages, well-kept parks, swimming pools, two sale barns for area farmers to use and others too many to name.

Oh, yes, we forgot a very special place for many of our senior citizens, McCook's own Heritage Senior Center which is a place of many activities and use.

It is owned and operated by the city and managed by the director Sue Chipman who is doing an outstanding job. She is an A+ person for this position. She has volunteer help from many of the senior citizens who go there nearly every day. The center provides many things for seniors to do. There is a pool room, library, exercise room, conference room, complete kitchen and dining area. Many card clubs meet there for their card parties. The center also has a monthly card party, weekly bingo, plus dominoes.

The building is available for rent for family reunions, birthday parties and so forth. A monthly news bulletin is available and is also online. Meals-on-Wheels organization joined up with the city several years ago and is now headquartered at the Senior Center managed by Donna Blake, another A+ person, who is in charge of arranging the volunteers to deliver the 60-plus meals served five days a week to shut-ins in the community.

She has many other duties and does a great job for this wonderful service. Last but not least, the daily meal, served five days a week, to any senior age 60 and above is one of the best.

The head cook is Sandy Brown, another A+ person and she is fantastic, coming up with delicious, nutritious menus every day. She has three helpers plus several volunteers helping serve the meals.

They manage to serve over 100 meals daily in addition to the 60-plus Meals-on-Wheels deliveries. They also prepare special meals to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, typically a week prior to the holiday. For example, this last week we attended the pre-Thanksgiving meal. It was a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Over 170 people came to enjoy the meal which was delicious. The 60-plus Meals-on-Wheels recipients were served the same delicious Thanksgiving meal. A few city employees came to help serve the meal to all.

Considering all this that McCook has to offer, we truly feel blessed to live here.

Don't you?

Sincerely,

Bob and Vonnie Tiller

McCook, Nebraska