PELION, S.C. — One restaurant in Pelion is helping provide meals for seniors in the community during the coronavirus pandemic.
People in the Midlands have been coming together to help take care of folks during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sweet Magnolia's Deli and Grille is located on Main Street in Pelion.
"We've been blessed," said Aimee Crosby, the general manager of the restaurant. "We've been able to keep the doors open. We've been able to keep all of our employees on the payroll. The community has really come together for us."
With the community being supportive of the restaurant as the coronavirus pandemic continues, Crosby wanted to do something to help pay it forward.
"We are partnering with the Pelion Senior Center. We are supplementing their Meals On Wheels program," explained Crosby. "So basically home-bound seniors get five meals a week for Meals On Wheels and I'm joining with them to provide the senior citizens an additional meal or two to get them through the week so they'll have enough food to last them the week."
The general manager feels like it's important to give back to the community. Her parents have been in Pelion for 40 years. Crosby was born and raised in the town. They've also been business owners in the community for 20 years.
"I feel like you need to kind of start at home first and make sure home is taken care of. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for our senior citizens and I just feel like that's the right thing to do."
The meals from Sweet Magnolia's Deli and Grille include one meat and three sides, a roll and dessert. They've been putting enough on the plate to help make two meals out of each one.
The community has helped provide $600 of donations over the last two days. Crosby says this will help provide meals for seniors for almost four weeks.
"My goal for fundraising is to raise around $5,000. That will do 20 weeks of meals for the seniors. I've gotten the cost down to about $3 a senior."
The restaurant has started a GoFundMe page to help raise money to provide meals for the seniors. Some people have been giving cash donations, as well as product donations.
Crosby says she hopes the meals help seniors who have no choice but to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic to make a life a little easier for them.
"In Pelion, it's always been a great community. We've been small, kind of tight knit. Everybody knows everybody and there's a lot of benefits to that everybody kind of looks out for their neighbor. It's a great community. I love being a part of it."
Crosby went on to say, "I really hope this brings awareness to the fact that we do have some in our community that are not able to get out and about and to provide for themselves. Let's really just look out for each other right now. Now is the time for us to build each other up and help in any way that we can."
If you would like to donate to their GoFundMe page so they can continue to feed seniors in Pelion, click here.