Business organizes gift drive for seniors

By KANTELE FRANKO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- While some organizations spend the holiday season collecting gifts for less fortunate children, a Boardman business owner wants shoppers to remember the opposite end of the age spectrum -- senior citizens.
Carol Haus, owner of Home Instead Senior Care in Boardman and Niles, is organizing the local collection and delivery of gifts for more than 750 elderly residents through the national care service company's "Be a Santa to a Senior" program. Home Instead is a leading nationwide provider of nonmedical home care for seniors.
Through the program, regional branches of Home Instead develop a list of local seniors citizens who have little contact with family and other community members during the holiday season. An ornament with the person's name and several gift suggestions is hung on a tree at a participating store, where community members can select an ornament, buy one or more of the listed gifts and return the items to be wrapped and delivered by volunteers.
More than 53,000 seniors nationwide received gifts through the program in 2004, including about 200 in the Mahoning Valley.
"It's for the seniors in the area that don't have family and they're all alone," Haus said. "It has nothing to do with financial assistance. It's just something to bring some joy into seniors' lives during the holidays."
No one left out
Haus said her business will buy gifts for any seniors whose names are not taken from a tree, though she is asking community members to continue picking names and buying gifts through Friday.
"Everyone always remembers the children, and it seems like the elderly are forgotten," she said. "They enjoy Christmas just like anyone else."
Shoppers can choose names at Wal-Mart, Bank One and Monet Salon and Spa in Boardman; Bank One in Canfield; Optiview Vision Center in Austintown; Wal-Mart in Warren; Super Kmart and Optiview Vision Center in Niles; and by calling Home Instead at (330) 729-1233. Unwrapped gifts should be dropped off at the Wal-Mart locations or taken to the Home Instead offices in Boardman or Niles.
This year's gift suggestions range from slippers and toys for pets to hygiene items and requests for companionship, with the most expensive being requests for a robe and a cardigan.
Haus said she is looking forward to delivering the gifts and spending time with the seniors during the week before Christmas, as she did last year.
"It was wonderful," she said, adding that most recipients received more than one gift. "Some people cried. They couldn't believe it."