QUINCY (WGEM) – Since moving home to Hannibal in 2018, Alfred King has rarely missed his weekly stop at the Hannibal Nutrition Center (HNC), where he loves to catch up with friends and staff. “I think it is one of the most important things in the city of Hannibal, Missouri,” King said. But Thursday, Nov. 20, as the HNC celebrated Thanksgiving with one final in-house meal, King couldn’t help but grieve. “It’s a very sad day for the city of Hannibal, to lose the opportunity for the senior citizens to be able to get a meal,” King remarked. For years, HNC has provided in-house meals without rejecting anyone who couldn’t pay. However, according to one board member, HNC’s value lies in more than the food it dishes up.“So many of our seniors get a hot meal here, they get camaraderie here, they get to come down here and play bingo and intermingle, it’s very important to these people,” said board member Roy Hark. HNC also delivers meals to house-bound seniors, a service Hark said doubles as a potentially life-saving check-in. “We have found them (senior meal recipients) on the floor, sick, nobody to care for them,” Hark explained. “They don’t have nobody to check on them, so we are a lifeline to them.” On Monday, Nov. 17, HNC revealed in a statement that home deliveries are being reduced to three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), and in-house meals are being suspended until further notice. A private company will supplement those missing meal deliveries with frozen meal drop-offs.The decision was almost too much to bear for Hark. “Oh, it about killed me. I really hated it. Because, like I’ve said, I’ve known these people for years, I’ve been around them, I know their needs, I know their wants, and I know how important this place is to seniors,” Hark explained.Several financial hurdles forced the HNC to cut back on its services. “You know, with the federal government shutdown, that hurt the funding sources coming in from the federal government, even though they’re now back open, we may not see any money until February or March,” said HNC board member Steve Carroll. Roughly a third of the agency’s budget is supplemented by the Older Americans Act (OAA).A dispute with the Area Agency on Aging (AAA), which distributes some of those funds to HNC, is also complicating things. AAA is asking the center to comply with new regulations governing how they keep financial records. Carroll said AAA has never taken issue with the center’s financial reporting before, but the board is willing to do anything to get funds flowing again. Additionally, food costs have increased by 20 percent, making the normal operations even more untenable. One staff member told WGEM News that HNC’s annual food costs total out to nearly $500,000, compared to $230,000 normally received from the OAA.For now, the HNC is focused on serving its Meals on Wheels recipients, even while the future is uncertain. “No senior in need should go Read More