Nutrition center closing doors to dine-in meals

The last scheduled meal to be served in the dining room at the Hannibal Nutrition Center will be Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. Hopefully, the dining room’s closing is temporary. Steve Carroll, board member, blames the closing on “the government shutdown, compounded by a regional policy dispute.” File photo contributed by Margee Tucker, the nutrition center’s executive director.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

An announcement came this week that will have significant impact on Hannibal’s core.

The Hannibal Nutrition Center, which serves meals four days a week to in-house diners at its facility at 219 S. Tenth, and provides home-delivered meals to many more, is being forced to cut back.

Beginning Monday, the in-building meal service will be curtailed, and significant cutbacks will be made to their home-delivered meals service. The announcement came via a press release issued by Steve Carroll, member of the Hannibal Nutrition Center’s board, who blamed the cutbacks on “the government shutdown, compounded by a regional policy dispute.”

Funds for the food program are distributed by the Northeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging. 

“The government shutdown is the main issue,” said Margee Tucker, the center’s executive director.

While the shutdown has officially ended, she has been told that it could be March 2026 before nutrition centers could expect to receive their next funding checks.

“And then, is there going to be another shutdown in January?” Margee asked. “They have reopened it for now, but we don’t know that it will stay open come January. It could close again.”

While the delay in the delivery of funding is taking a big toll on the center’s operating budget, it is not the only issue.

Funding has remained constant, Margee said, while “the price of food, insurance, wages, electric have gone up.

“Everything has gone up, and funding has stayed the same. Now we aren’t getting any funding,” Margee said.

“We never wanted this to happen. We have fought and fought and fought to keep this from happening, and it still happened.”

The last scheduled congregate dinner in the center’s facility will be the traditional Thanksgiving meal, to be served Thursday, Nov. 20.

Hopefully, the closure of the dining room is temporary. “That’s our hope. We need community support. It is always hard to ask for help. But at times it’s necessary. Right now prayer is all we’ve got.”

The announcement of the center’s closing came on Tuesday, and during the lunch hour, it was the the talk of those assembled at the Nutrition Center.

“A lot of our clients are devastated,” Margee said. They asked her: “What are we going to do? We get out of bed to come here and visit with our friends.”

“What do I say to that? I don’t know what to say to that. I had two people crying yesterday in  the dining room. We have three (phone) lines, and we were answering phones back to back to back. It all wears on you very heavily. You feel like you have failed. And that’s how we feel.

“Clients don’t have to pay to get get a meal. We ask for a $5 donation, but if they don’t donate, they don’t donate.” They are served a meal, regardless. “They may only have 10 cents, and put it on the counter, every morning without fail. And some of clients don’t pay at all.”

Medicaid recipients

One change has already been implemented to the center’s home-delivered meal program.

“Medicaid recipients are now receiving frozen meals," she said, delivered via a government contractor, rather than the hot meals previously delivered by the Hannibal Nutrition Center. “Not everyone has a microwave,” or the ability to heat up the frozen meal, she said. “Medicaid people are the most vulnerable population. I don’t understand. None of us do.”

For the remainder of the homebound clients, starting on Monday, Nov. 24, meal delivery will be reduced to three days per week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The agency delivers 4,100 meals to homebound seniors each month.

“People don’t understand now hard it is,” Margee said. “We are in charge of employees who need a job; people who need food; procuring funding. We’ve sat here for weeks and weeks trying to see what to do. This isn’t a job; it is helping people.

“It’s not too late” to turn the situation around, Margee said. “That’s what we hope everybody understands. We don’t want this to be forever. We want to get back to normal.”

Margee is hopeful that the community will step forward and help the center get back on its feet.

Fundraisers

The Hannibal Nutrition Center conducts fundraisers throughout the year, with proceeds dedicated to the purchase of food to be served at the center.

A Basket Bingo event is coming up, which is one of the largest fundraisers of the year. The event will be at 6 p.m. Dec. 16 at the Admiral Coontz Recreation Center, and doors will open at 5 p.m. “The Basket Bingo events are always big fund raisers for the center, but this month we will make sure it is bigger and better” Margee said. Ample seating will be available.

A special feature at the auction will be a set of the six Hannibal history books written by Mary Lou Montgomery, donated by the author.

Donations can be made via Venmo, PayPal, by credit card, cash, “just anything, currency,” she said. The center can be reached by calling 573 221 4488.

The Hannibal Nutrition Center is more than a place to eat; it is a place to congregate with friends. On June 26, 2025, Mark Kempker, left, Roy Hark and Archie Hayden, right, took time out during lunch to look over a Hannibal Fire Department scrapbook on display at the center. The scrapbook was assembled by Mary Lou Montgomery, who also took this photo.