The Visiting Nurse Association, which operates Meals on Wheels, is inviting a whole new crop of volunteers to experience the joy of delivering food to shut-ins this MLK holiday while off from work or school. No training seminar required, just signup by January 9th to commit to taking a route that would have been covered by a paid driver.

Meals on Wheels is participating in the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. National Day of Service, with hundreds of projects and thousands of do-gooders jumping in to help people in their hometown. When you email Betsy Cox here to sign up, she’ll assign you an arrival time between 10 and 11am Monday morning, January 16th, to pick up your cooler of meals (one for hot foods, one for cold) at the VNA Haggerty Center, 1440 W. Mockingbird Lane, Dallas 75247. Your list is likely to have 10-12 client addresses with turn-by-turn directions to their homes in a compact geographic area. You can deliver alone or you can bring family and friends, including children of any age (assuming they are supervised).

If MLK Day doesn’t work for you, Friday, January 13th between 10am and 1pm they’re hosting an Emergency Meal Labeling Project, with 8,000 shelf-stable meals to work on for those days when deliveries can’t be made, such as icy weather and other emergencies. Volunteers are invited to come and go as schedules allow.