MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Every Tuesday, as part of our Community Changers series, we highlight organizations making Memphis better. This week, we caught up with a group that knows it’s more than just a meal.

Steve Boscarino has been delivering meals for MIFA for the last year.

“I get that moment where I’m connecting with another person. Possibly the only person they see that day,” Steve told us.

MIFA, Metropolitan Inter Faith Association, supports the independence of vulnerable seniors and families in crisis. They provide hot meals to seniors five days a week who are homebound and age sixty or older through their meals on wheels program.

They deliver a meal to a senior in their home who may, for health reasons or financial reasons, not be able to have access to food.

Sally Heinz is their President and Ceo. She knows isolation and loneliness can also impact health just as much as nutrition.

“That volunteer who checks on that senior. Visits for a moment is really important. It’s definitely more than a meal,” Heinz said.

Tonya Parker is the Director of Meals on Wheels.

“MIFA has a full production kitchen. Meals are made fresh daily here,” Parker told us. “Cooks come in starting at about two thirty, three in the morning. It’s a big production to get the meals cooked, packaged and out the door.”

They provide over two thousand healthy meals a day. You can see all the routes throughout Shelby County located on the wall. It takes a lot of coordination and volunteers.

“I got great people that come every day that bless me with a meal. And I thank God for that,” a grateful senior told us.

That is why our anonymous donor wanted to give MIFA a thousand dollars. Because it is more than a meal. It’s offering a human connection as well.

A true community changer.