Olive's 100th Birthday

At 95 she rode motorcycles.

At 99 she helped feed hundreds of senior citizens in Grants Pass.

And in less than 24 hours Olive Watson will turn 100-years old.

Olive started helping with the county's Food and Friends meals on wheels program 16 years ago, feeding seniors more than 20 years younger than her in some cases, and she's still doing it at 100 years young.

Every Thursday Olive and Bill Watson bring Josephine County seniors food, but more importantly a friend.

"I love it.," Olive says. "Some of these people we go into their houses they wouldn't have seen anyone else maybe all day and I make friends, I have a lot of good friends, I look forward to seeing them and they look forward to seeing me."

But this day is Olive's day.

A crowd of hundreds at her church sing happy birthday before and after the traditional Saturday lunch.

"I was born in a different time in this life," she says. "There was no electricity, there was no inside toilets, there was no running water except as we run for it."

It took a century, but Olive accomplished her dreams. Marrying the man who still has her heart, adopting two children she calls dolls, and helping her friends without a second thought.

Her son Ken Watson says that's just the secret to a long and healthy life.

"When you look at her she love life," he says. '"Trials and tribulations don't top her if something gets in her way she's over it under it pushes through it... it doesn't matter."

"She's my role model," Jane Whaley with the Food and Friends program say. "I think if more of us had the community spirit that Olive does to get out and help others in whatever ay we can the world would be a better place."

For hundreds it's Olive who makes the world a better place..

"I like people i'm a people person so if I can cheer somebody up it helps me," she says.

To another hundred years, happy birthday Olive.

The Food and Friends program where Olive and her husband still volunteer serves more than 230,000 meals a year to home bound senior citizens.

Organizers say they look forward to Olive and B ill coming back to work every thursday for years to come.