Senior meals better than nothing, though guidelines aren't met

Editor:

I applaud both Columbia and McDuffie counties' decisions to help feed more seniors in our community. I'm sure those meals from the jails are good and tasty and are obviously less expensive to prepare using inmate labor.

However, in your story about the senior meals served out at the Bessie Thomas Center, you left out that those meals do not meet the same nutritional guidelines established by the Department of Human Resources which the Senior Citizens Council is forced to follow in order to receive federal funding.

Nor do you mention that there is a ton of paperwork and casework that goes into the price of the meal. There is much more to it than the actual food and unfortunately it drives up the cost of a meal.

I do think that given the limited resources available, it still makes sense for the counties to serve these meals the way they do. Something is always better than nothing, and the fact is that many more folks will get something with the county dollars than if they only participated in the Council's program.

Lawrence Hammond

Evans