This Thanksgiving, Neighbors looked for people who serve in an organization that has touched their own lives. The stories we found paint a picture of open hearts that we hope will be inspiring and heartwarming. During a season of giving, these stories show that one very valuable gift is simply time.

-- Erica Myatt, Neighbors editor

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Pat Eubank kisses her mother, Louise Bolt, on the cheek after dropping off her Meals on Wheels lunch.

Meals recipient's kin pitch in

This is the time of year everyone has something to be thankful for, even the simplest of things.

Louise Bolt, at 97, says she's thankful for "what everyone is thankful for -- my health and what I have."

Then she talks about how grateful she is for the people who bring her meals five times a week. That one meal is enough for lunch and dinner for her, she said.

"I really look forward to it. I'm satisfied with everything," Bolt said of the lunches she receives under the Local Office on Aging's Meals on Wheels program.

Volunteers, including her daughter and son-in-law, drop by before noon to deliver food and check on her.

"I don't cook much. I fix my breakfast," said Bolt, adding that if she didn't receive lunches through the Meals on Wheels program, she would have to depend more on family that includes two daughters in the Roanoke Valley.

Her daughter Pat Eubank is thankful she has family, including her mother, sister, children and grandchildren, to get together for the holiday.

Pat Eubank signed Bolt up for Meals on Wheels nearly three years ago. Eubank and her husband, Conway, then volunteered to deliver meals.

"With Mother receiving meals, I thought we ought to do something to give back," Pat Eubank explained. They also got a boost to volunteer from Pat Eubank's uncle and aunt, Reginald and Mary Alice Hutcherson, who deliver meals in the Windsor Hills neighborhood.

Reginald Hutcherson "is my mother's baby brother," Pat Eubank said, adding that Bolt is the oldest of seven surviving siblings. Two others are deceased.

Bolt no longer drives and is unable to go to the grocery store on a regular basis.

Her mother was a great cook, Pat Eubank said. But "Mother doesn't do much cooking now. She'd burn down the house," she said jokingly.

Instead, Bolt awaits her meal delivery.

"Well, bless your hearts, you brought me something to eat. Can you stay awhile?" is the usual welcome Bolt greets the Eubanks with as they make their fourth stop. They normally come back to visit after completing the deliveries.

The Eubanks deliver meals one Wednesday each month and the fifth Thursday. Most of the time they are available to fill in for others, if they aren't off traveling themselves.

Meals on Wheels is the couple's first volunteer endeavor since they both retired. Pat Eubank was secretary to the principal at Patrick Henry High School, and Conway Eubank retired from the safety department for Norfolk Southern Railway.

Their regular route has about 16 stops in the Vinton area, including Bolt's home.

"I'll drive, and she'll sit behind me and put the plates together," Conway Eubank said of his wife. "It's so much quicker than when we used to both assemble them from the back of the van."

The Eubanks pick up cold and hot food items at Thrasher Memorial United Methodist Church, then assemble each meal, based on the individual's diet.

Pat Eubank usually takes the meals to the door while Conway Eubank waits in their van.

"Most of the people we visit look forward to having the meals delivered so they can have someone to talk to," Pat Eubank said.

"All of the people are so appreciative," she added.

Volunteering in the meals program has made the Eubanks more appreciative of having family nearby, especially at Thanksgiving, they said. They were planning to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nancy Rutledge and her family in Salem. She and Pat Eubank are sisters.

The Meals on Wheels program provides hot meals to more than 625 homebound seniors, aged 60 and older, said Susan Williams, LOA executive director.

"It's a good program, and they need more people to volunteer," Pat Eubank said.

-- JoAnne Poindexter

Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Jenelle Wade (left) helps Margaret Mullen paint a wooden turkey during their Bible study at the 17th Street Baptist Community Center.

Cousins help as they are helped

Jenelle Wade prayed for others with her head lowered and eyes closed after she received free food from the Roanoke Valley Baptist Association Food Pantry.

In a voice no louder than a whisper, she spoke out names of people she wanted the Lord to watch over. Her voice was an echo in a sea of murmurs from women who also received free food with Wade.

Wade was in a women's fellowship service where 17th Street Baptist Church's co-pastor David Burgess led the women in songs and in a daily devotional. The women receive the free food in the morning before the fellowship and crafts, which are followed by a free lunch.

"Times are hard," Wade said about needing the food from the pantry. But her need doesn't stop her from thinking of others.

Wade said she will be the first to say that she does not own much, but what she does have she will share with others. She volunteers each week at the food pantry, handing out the food that she also receives.

Burgess said the service Wade provides is essential for the sake of others. The church is still in need of more volunteers, he said, but the process would be overwhelming without help from Wade and others.

Wade became involved with the Southeast Roanoke church after Burgess approached her and her cousin, Bonnie Stanley, about the women's fellowship. The two were eager to attend, and once in the fellowship they were told of volunteer opportunities and jumped to help.

"It's rewarding to help somebody else," Wade said. "You put a smile on someone's face, and you make someone feel better."

The two cousins talked of how their experiences brought them closer to each other and to the Lord and pushed them to volunteer more.

They described how they are both disabled, suffering from back pain, and Wade also has fibromyalgia and depression. As the two cousins held hands and cried as they spoke of their experiences, Stanley talked about her near-death experience in a motorcycle accident. Wade discussed a previous problem with drugs.

They don't tell many people of their experiences, for fear of being judged, but said God has changed their lives and provided them an opportunity to help others as they have been helped.

It's ironic, the cousins said, how having little to nothing causes you to better appreciate life and the good company of others. The smallest morsel of food, they said, is more savory when shared with others. Their work is a blessing through God's love, and their lives have been forever changed by their services, they said.

As Wade prepared for the women's service last week, she walked by most of the free food offered that day and headed to the community center to help the other women. The food she did get, she said, she may end up giving to a needy person who was unable to come.

"Somebody else can get them," she said about the food items. "I have plenty."

-- Marvin T. Anderson

Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times

Cathey Rhodes (left) and Sal Ricotta (center) chat with Cheryl Poe at the Presbyterian Community Center. Poe, director of volunteers, says volunteers keep the center running.

Presbyterian center runs on helping hands

The Presbyterian Community Center is pretty much dependent on the nearly 490 people who donate their time to help with fundraising, youth and after-school programs, driving, answering phones, client interviews and the food pantry.

The center couldn't survive without its volunteers, said Cheryl Poe, director of volunteers.

Cathey Rhodes and Sal Ricotta are familiar faces at the Jamison Avenue Southeast center that provides educational, economic and spiritual assistance to residents in Southeast and Northeast Roanoke and Vinton.

They are there as beneficiaries and volunteers.

"It's a comfortable place to relax [for] a couple hours," said Ricotta, who lives with his mother and younger brother.

He has been riding his bike or walking from his nearby home to the center to price food, stock pantry shelves, bag food orders and answer phones since his mother received assistance nearly five years ago.

More recently, Ricotta said he received a bed. "I was sleeping on a sofa."

Living off a disability check since he was in his teens, Ricotta, now in his mid-40s, said the Presbyterian center allows him to help others.

"I'm happy I can volunteer here. Sometimes I make people laugh," said Ricotta as he toted a box of canned vegetables.

The Presbyterian Community Center is celebrating its 40th year in Southeast Roanoke, and its programs rely on volunteers from numerous churches, organizations and businesses. The center also partners with other social service agencies to help clients.

"They've helped me my whole life," Rhodes said of the staff and volunteers at the center.

"When I was a kid, my mother came here. Now I feel like I'm actually giving back to them," said Rhodes, 26.

Rhodes approaches her volunteer duties with vim.

"This is giving me experience," she said, noting that her goal one day is to work in an office-type job.

The single mother of David, 4, and Brianna, 7, returned to the Presbyterian center through a work force program at Total Action Against Poverty as a requirement for receiving her monthly social services check.

She is also enrolled in a GED program. "I'm putting my GED off no more," she said adamantly. "I put it off twice, and now I'm not worrying about it interfering with an actual, true job."

So when her children, who are too young for the center's after-school programs, are in day care and school, she's at the center 29 to 31 hours a week.

Whether she's stocking pantry shelves, answering telephones, collating orders or doing any other jobs, Rhodes said she's building her confidence.

She has learned to operate the telephones and transfer calls, adding that can be confusing.

"I just fill in. If they need copies, I make copies," said Rhodes, adding, "I feel like I'm actually giving something back to them [the Presbyterian Community Center and the community]."

-- JoAnne Poindexter

Russell DeBoer

Salvation Army helps man turn his life around

Russell DeBoer, a family man, a one-time successful business owner and a recovering alcoholic, awoke one day in 1985 in search of a way to become a better man for his children.

He left two houses, three acres and everything else he knew in North Carolina for uncertainty in Roanoke and a life as a homeless man. But, a few years later, he found what he said he was destined to do.

He turned his back on his former life at a time when he was suffering from a divorce, distant relationships with his children and alcoholism.

"It's between the Salvation Army and the good Lord that led me out of that," he said.

While volunteering to lead a bingo game at a local nursing home, DeBoer explained what trials in his life led him to working with the Salvation Army.

DeBoer said that being a NASCAR fan, he thought of making a new start around the raceway in Martinsville. But after difficulty securing a job, DeBoer said the Holy Spirit moved him to Roanoke to contact the Salvation Army.

He was frightened to live in a shelter and concerned after leaving North Carolina, but he felt as though he was on a path predestined by God to purge him of personal vices.

"Sometimes that's what you have to do," he said. "Sometimes you have to get away from your environment."

DeBoer began to volunteer with the Salvation Army after he spent three days at the Red Shield Lodge, the Salvation Army's shelter. He began painting houses as a volunteer, began part-time work at the Salvation Army and was later hired for a full-time job.

DeBoer still continues to volunteer, and in the past has served for disaster relief. He served food and toiletries to troops and victims of terrorist attacks at the Pentagon after Sept. 11, 2001. He traveled to Jacksonville, Miss., to assist in the Hurricane Katrina relief. And, most recently, he volunteered to assist families of victims at Virginia Tech after the school shootings.

DeBoer said he would serve others while suffering pains day and night, but his reward, he said, is providing a service through Jesus and becoming a fit example for his children.

A life living to help others through Jesus, he said, is one worth being proud of. He hopes he exudes a positive attitude to his children and community, that with hard work and Jesus, any issue from alcoholism to depression can be resolved.

"I still drink though," he said as he pulled out an unlabeled plastic bottle in the nursing home. He sipped from the bottle and placed it in his pocket. "Yeah, white lightning."

People stared as he looked down at another card to continue bingo.

"It's water," he said as he chuckled and called out another number for the game.

-- Marvin T. Anderson