COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Columbia non-profit who's dedicated to serving senior citizens in the community are asking for help and donations to help more people.
Beth Struble, the interim director of development at Senior Resources, says their in need of help after the holidays to start the new year.
"Senior Resources is a non-profit organization to empower senior citizens to live healthy independent lives in their household," said Struble.
The group helps provide services like volunteer, hunger-relief, home care and wellness services.
At this time, Senior Resources has 150 qualified people who are on their waiting list for Meals On Wheels. The non-profit helps provide one hot meal a day that's delivered by a volunteer.
"It's also a chance for our seniors to have a human touch during the day. A lot of them are isolated, do not speak to anybody, so it's the one chance for them to get a hello and a conversation, which is very important for them."
The group is hoping to receive funding to help reduce the waiting list so seniors can get the meals that they need. It typically cost $2,000 a year to feed one senior citizen. In the meantime, Senior Resources give those senior citizens on the waiting list shelf-item foods to help.
80 percent of the seniors the non-profit serves are at 200 percent or below poverty line. Many of these seniors are home-bound or disabled.
Senior Resources uses about 50 volunteers per day to help deliver the Meals On Wheels but are still in need of more people helping with various projects.
Besides Meals on Wheels, they have a program called Pet Pals. What they found is a lot of senior citizens were only eating half of their meals so their pet can eat the other half. Many of the senior citizens don't have the money to feed their own pets. To combat this issue, Senior Resources are providing pet food for the seniors they serve.
People are able to donate online or bring in items to their location. You could bring canned goods, preferable pop-tops, granola bars, peanut butter, and other items.
"It's important to lend a helping hand especially to our older adults. They're typically looked over. Without their neighbors, then they may have no one. It's important for the community to step up and deliver to these citizens that have already provided for our community for us to grow then."
If you would like to help volunteer at Senior Resources, click here.