Clara Etta Williams

If you are a Meals on Wheels volunteer, you may have been lucky enough to have met Ms. Clara Etta Williams. Clara has been a meal recipient since 2003 and her influence on the program dates back to the inception of Meals on Wheels San Antonio in 1977.

As a social services volunteer, a civil rights advocate and nurse for over 40 years, Clara has dedicated her life to helping others. In the late 70’s, when she heard that a friend was starting an organization to serve hot meals to shut-ins, she had to help. She enlisted the assistance of another neighborhood organization, which provided transportation for seniors. They had vehicles from which the hot meals could be delivered and the logistical expertise to make it happen. As the number of seniors Meals on Wheels served grew, her friend asked her to become a board member. From that position, Clara was able to continue shaping the program from which she would one day benefit.

“My life has always been based around home, church, and community. I ask: ‘What can I do to help someone else?’ ”

She reflects humbly on what she calls a “small role” in a program that now serves over 1 million meals each year. She acknowledges that without this home-delivered meal program she helped found, her life today would be very different.

Clara has lived in her home on the east side of San Antonio for over fifty years. She has had multiple careers and leadership roles in the community. Her children were born and raised here, and her mother even received meals from Meals on Wheels. Now a recipient of the program herself, receiving hot, healthy meals at her door enables her to remain in her home, in the community she helped shape.