For 60 Years, Milestone Senior Services has helped vulnerable people in our community thrive; now the organization needs your help!

Everyday seniors and adults with disabilities across Southwest Michigan face tough questions: Should I buy food or medicine? How can I stay in my home now that I can no longer go up and down stairs? Who can help me transition back home after I leave a skilled nursing facility? Fortunately, the team members and volunteers at Milestone Senior Services are here to help people thrive and remain in their homes with dignity.

For nearly 60 years Milestone Senior Services (formerly known as Senior Services of Southwest Michigan) has been serving Meals on Wheels, building access ramps that allow people to remain in their homes, providing transitional care and companionship, helping with household chores and much more.

A facility that’s overdue for updates

Since 1973, Milestone Senior Services has operated out of a former community center on Jasper Street in Kalamazoo. As you might expect, a building that’s 49 years old needs improvements. Lots of improvements, in fact. The HVAC system needs replacement; the parking lot needs repaving, and modifications are needed to prevent flooding—just to name a few.

Recurrent flooding is one of the most difficult issues to correct at Milestone Senior Services because when water comes in, they have to shut down the kitchen. Without an operational kitchen, they’re unable serve meals.

A capital campaign to help change lives

The solution? A capital campaign to help fund the necessary upgrades to the Milestone Senior Services facility. The organization has undertaken an ambitious $3 million fundraising goal that would allow it to upgrade the building so they can continue to feed and care for the community’s seniors and people with disabilities.

How the funds will be used

Funds raised through the capital campaign will be used to make crucial building improvements that directly support services, such as:

• New kitchen equipment that allows more meals to be prepared and delivered.
• A workshop where ramps can be built regardless of weather and then assembled at homes where residents can no longer navigate stairs.
• Improved drainage so operations aren’t shut down after heavy rains and snow melts.
• Addition of an expanded and covered entrance for Meals on Wheels volunteers

Community partners pitching in

Consumers Credit Union is a longtime partner in supporting the Milestone Senior Services mission. For many years, our employees have volunteered for the Meals on Wheels program, as well as several board and committee positions. To support the capital campaign, we’ve committed $125,000 over the next ten years, as well as yearly in-kind marketing of $36,750 for ten years.

We’re also excited by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation’s support of Milestone Senior Services with a grant of $500,000. With this generous gift, the capital campaign has now raised $1.5 million – half of the overall goal!

We invite you to help too!

Will you help support services for some of the most vulnerable people in our community? Every donation benefits people right here in Southwest Michigan—including the counties of Allegan, Branch, Barry, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren.

The easiest and fastest way to support the life-changing work of Milestone Senior Services is by making a donation.

If you enjoy hitting the links, consider registering online to play in the 13^th annual Milestone Senior Services Golf Fundraiser. This four-person scramble is June 13, 2022, at Pine View Golf Club in Three Rivers.

Consumers provides banking services for more than 120,000 members. If you have banking questions, call us at 800-991-2221. We make it easy to bank how you want, when you want.