With help from co-op chapters across the state, SC WIRE has supplied 50 bags of supplies for displaced nursing residents to the S.C. Council on Aging.
Members of Women Involved in Rural Electrification chapters converged at the Cayce offices of the state co-op association on Thursday, March 12 to prepare bags with blankets, clothes, toiletries, pillows, towels, Depends and knitted items.
The knitted items were handmade by a group from Horry Electric’s service area dubbed the Knit Wits. Beverley Grainger, an HEC member, and others in the group knitted hats, lap blankets and scarves and crocheted slippers. “She would bring them to the co-op for us,” says Susan Brown of HEC’s WIRE chapter.
Peggy Dantzler of ECSC, who coördinated the event, said WIRE chapters around the state raised funds locally for the bags, spending $6,444.30, or about $128 per bag, to aid senior citizens. The Council on Aging will distribute the bags to residents of nursing homes that are closed suddenly due to safety regulations or DHEC compliance issues. Dantzler notes that a few co-ops as well as local co-op members and people donated funds for the third annual Co-op Closet.
WIRE is a community service group affiliated with co-ops across the state; the chapters collaborate through the statewide SC WIRE organization.