Richland models care for seniors

South Carolina ranks fourth-worst in the nation when it comes to food insecurity among seniors, according to an annual report by the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger. More than 19 percent of our state’s seniors face marginal or intermittent food insecurity. Another 11 percent are food insecure, meaning they don’t always know where their next meal is coming from. And 4 percent go hungry every day.

That translates into nearly 16,000 seniors in Richland County alone who face some level of hunger or food insecurity.

At Senior Resources, we have been working for 50 years to serve the seniors in our community who don’t have enough to eat. But in recent years, as the baby boomer generation has matured, the waiting list for our Meals on Wheels program has steadily grown. At its peak a few months ago, there were more than 300 seniors waiting to receive food from Meals on Wheels.

We’ve worked hard to secure additional funding from a variety of sources, and our efforts to meet the community’s needs have included advocacy and education, making sure that our elected officials are aware of the waiting list and the impact on seniors.

This month, Richland County Council heard the call and responded.

The council increased funding for Senior Resources in its 2017-18 budget by $182,400. This will eliminate our Meals on Wheels waiting list and allow us to deliver a meal each day to seniors in our county who are hungry.

These seniors are our elderly neighbors and loved ones. Many of them live alone, while others care for an ailing spouse. They are home-bound and no longer able to advocate for themselves or navigate a complicated system to access the services they need. They are the business owners, police officers, teachers, doctors and veterans who built our community and raised us.

At Senior Resources, we believe that we have a moral obligation to take care of them, starting with such basic human needs as a daily hot meal.

We are overwhelmed with gratitude to our council members, led by Councilmen Greg Pearce and Jim Manning, for seeing that even one hungry senior is too many in Richland County. We hope our community will lead the charge to improve living conditions for seniors across South Carolina.

This story was originally published June 24, 2017 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Richland models care for seniors."