Photo by Nathan Gray

John Fortney, left, and Coyle Harmon, employees of Golden Harvest Food Bank, deliver boxes of food to the Baptist Village Apartments in Anderson on Wednesday. A "Brown Bag Program" was started at the apartments which provides 20 pounds of carefully selected food products to elderly low-income citizens.

Photo by Nathan Gray

John Fortney, an employee of Golden Harvest Food Bank, pulls boxes of food from a truck to deliver to the Baptist Village Apartments in Anderson on Wednesday. A "Brown Bag Program" was started at the apartments which provides 20 pounds of carefully selected food products to elderly low-income citizens.

ANDERSON COUNTY — According to the U.S. Census, more than 14 percent of the senior citizens in Anderson County are forced to make daily decision between their most basic needs.

Now, thanks to a new program, at least 48 of them will get help with those decisions, when they receive bags of supplemental groceries every month for the rest of the year.

The program is part of a collaboration between Golden Harvest Food Bank, N & H Enterprises, Inc., the manager of Baptist Village, an apartment building for senior citizens and the disabled in Anderson and Ameriprise Financial.

Each month the seniors will receive 20 pounds of carefully selected food from Golden Harvest’s Brown Bag Program. N & H Enterprises identified the seniors most in need. The food distribution is underwritten by Ameriprise.

“We are so happy to be working with this great organization to make sure that the county’s at-risk seniors don’t go hungry,” said Tammy Jackson, Golden Harvest’s Outreach Manger of N & H Enterprises.

Of the 11 South Carolina counties in Golden Harvest’s service area, eight will now provide supplemental groceries to at-risk seniors. Golden Harvest encompasses 30 counties in Georgia and South Carolina.

Residents can support the Brown Bag Program by “adopting a senior” for just $5 a month.

To participate, contact Jackson at Golden Harvest at 1-800-766-7690, ext. 219, or via email at tjackson@goldenharvest.org.