Senior Services Volunteers Honored at Annual Breakfast

Many Dearborn residents–as well as two special honorees–were recognized at the city's Senior Service Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast March 16 for their consistent assistance to the senior community.

The Recreation Department’s Senior Services Division, in partnership with the Senior Citizens Commission, offers many programs that benefit senior residents.

Among those are physical fitness classes, seminars on medical issues, Meals on Wheels preparation and delivery, computer instruction, bus ticket distribution and low-cost transportation services. Help with preparation of tax forms is another example of the services offered.

Though many volunteers assist in the various programs, this year's appreciation breakfast particularly honored Cecili Wylie Pilon and Jeffrey Ponstein, who were named Dearborn's Senior Volunteers of the Year for 2011.

Both Pilon and Ponstein are graduates of Dearborn Public Schools, as well as longtime residents.

Pilon works mostly with the city's monthly Surplus Food Distribution program, assisting with packaging and distribution of the food. She also bakes cookies for the Key Club volunteers, and helps with the Senior Services Division's Liquid Nutrition program on occasion.

In addition to all that, Pilon also delivers Meals on Wheels once a week to Dearborn seniors, helps with the city's newsletter and theater mailings and ushers at the Michael A. Guido Theater.

Ponstein also volunteers with Meals on Wheels and is one of the program's most active volunteers, driving food to residents at least two to three days a week.

He also helps with service projects and food packaging for the Ward Presbyterian Church in Northville and service projects for Focus Hope in Detroit, as well as volunteering at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and Gleaner’s Food Bank in Detroit.

For more information on Dearborn's Senior Services Division, go to the seniors page of the Ford Center website.