COLUMBIA, S.C. — With college students gone home for the summer, its leaving some local charities struggling. Senior Resources runs Meals on Wheels, and they need to fill in those gaps to get food to hungry shut ins.
“Over 80% of our participants are at 200% of the poverty line or greater,” Andrew Boozer said.
Boozer, the executive director of Senior Resources, says seniors rely on their food.
“Where we're seeing the greatest need right now are those that are really serving the homebound, shut in seniors that really can't get out of the house and cannot make ends meet on a month to month basis and that’s where things like our meals on wheels program fill in that need and keep them healthy,” he said.
The Meals on Wheels program provides home delivered meals to elderly and homebound residents in Richland County, but officials say the waitlist for this service has grown.
“Right now it's just going faster than resources are able to keep up with it. So, this time last year, we had about 40 people on the waiting list. Today, we've got 203. So, it's a five-fold increase, and we're trying to get the community support to meet this need," Boozer said.
He says there are many reasons behind the large increase.
"Our senior population has grown in Richland County over the last 30 years. It has grown at almost three times faster than the general population. We have more seniors in our community than we've ever had to the price of the increase in food and cost of living in our community has gone up and it's really hit our seniors hard,” Boozer said.
The organization isn’t expecting a boost from state funding.
“The state budget is still going through the State House, but there are no increases built into that. We found out recently that the Richland County government, who usually supports us at a very significant level, is projected to cut our funding in the next year. That's going just going to make this deficit that we have right now in our community even more and see the waitlist growing if we don't have support," Boozer said.
Volunteers like Harold Murray deliver meals and provide wellness checks to more than 700 seniors in the area.
“It's not just the fact that you’re delivering to a stranger, you’re delivering to someone who needs a meal, and I've seen that. I've seen all different needs. That brings me back year after year, time after time,” Murray said.
For information on how to volunteer or donate to the organization you can visit their website.