Be a Santa to a Senior, the popular campaign that last year delivered more than 300 gifts to local needy seniors, is being planned again this holiday season as older adults continue to face poverty and loneliness.
    The area office of Home Instead Senior Care network, the world’s largest provider of non-medical in-home care and companionship services for older adults, is joining with the Statesboro Mall and The Clubhouse Family Entertainment Center to provide gifts and companionship to seniors who otherwise might not receive either.
    “Seniors faced with medical bills and the high cost of living can find they have little left at the end of the year,” said Allison Waters Mager, the community service representative of the Home Instead Senior Care office serving Bulloch County. “That’s not the only issue, though.  Personal needs may become magnified for so many living alone with no one to share their problems.”
    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 9 percent of U.S. seniors 65 and older are living in poverty and 27 percent are widowed.
    Here’s how to help these struggling seniors: Pick up ornaments with the first names of seniors and their gift request from the Christmas trees, which will be up at the Statesboro Mall and The Clubhouse Family Entertainment Center through Dec 12. Buy items on the list and return them unwrapped to the store, along with the ornaments attached. A community gift-wrapping event, when hundreds of the presents will the wrapped, will be held Dec. 17.
    “Helping a needy older adult can bring fulfillment to the giver as well as the receiver-it does make a difference,” Allison Waters Mager said. 
    For more information about the program, visit www.beasantatoasenior.com or call (912) 764-3999.