With lots of paper ornaments still hanging on the holiday tree at Home Instead Senior Care, it’s not too late to step up and Be a Santa to a Senior this Christmas season.

Each holiday season, Home Instead partners with hospice and home health agencies, nonprofit organizations, retirement homes and individual volunteers to make the holiday season a little merrier for some older adults through its Be a Santa to a Senior program, which collects, wraps and delivers gifts to senior adults who may not have anyone to celebrate with during the holiday season.

“The holidays can be hard for many older adults, especially those who may not have a companion to share them with,” said Charrisa Shirley, owner of the Home Instead office serving Lauderdale, Clarke, Newton, Neshoba, Jasper and Kemper counties. “Through Be a Santa to a Senior, we can help these seniors experience the happiness and togetherness the season can bring.”

Much like gift programs designed to benefit children, the Christmas tree inside Home Instead’s office at 4525 Poplar Springs Drive features paper ornaments in the shape of bulbs with older adults’ first names and a handwritten list of their gift requests.

Kim Yudt, human resource manager for Home Instead, said shoppers can participate by visiting the office or by calling 601-286-3242 to pick out one of the bulb ornaments. After purchasing the wishlist items, shoppers place the items in a reusable holiday tote bag, a store bag or a plastic tub with a lid and return it to the office by Dec. 14.

They need to make sure they tape the identifying ornament to the bag or tub, Yudt said. Home Instead then distributes the packages to their partner agencies, who deliver them to the seniors in time for the holidays.

Items on the wish lists range from warm clothes, like sweat pants and gloves, to lap blankets to towels and washcloths to body lotion to flashlights or handheld radios with batteries.

“It’s items from toiletries to adult coloring books with markers to handheld radios to cleaning supplies, not stuff you would normally see on a wish list,” Yudt said. “When you think of programs like this, you kind of think of children. But with senior adults, it’s a lot different with their wish lists because their needs are different.”

This is the fifth year that Home Instead’s Meridian office has participated in the Be a Santa to a Senior program and hopes to collect gifts for 400 seniors living in Lauderdale County and the surrounding area, Yudt said. A small number of the bulbs on the tree may have the name of someone who is younger than a senior because the partner agency may have submitted their name determining they have a need or they are receiving life-altering treatments, she said.

“We have a lot of names already adopted, but we still have a tree full and some names to put on the tree when those come off,” she said. “We are hoping to get all of the names up on the tree and adopted.”

Be a Santa to a Senior is a good way for adult and youth Sunday school classes, school clubs and classes, civic clubs and work groups to extend a little kindness to a lonely senior adult during the holiday season, Yudt said.

“It’s very rewarding,” she said of the program. “A lot of times, senior adults kind of get put on the back burner, and we want to bring a little bit of joy to them during the holidays. They deserve it as much as anybody.”

Home Instead also accepts cash donations to the program, which it uses to go out and shop for those seniors whose bulbs were remaining on the tree.

“Any names that are left, we go shopping for them,” Yudt said. “We are not gong to throw away any names.”

She said they also will accept donations of single items, such as gloves, a lap blanket, cleaning supplies or towels, because they combine those donations to fill up seniors’ boxes.

“If you’re not able to adopt somebody that needs a lot of things, we take donations of single items,” Yudt said.”So, if somebody wants to go and grab a $5 lap blanket from Walmart and bring it in, then that will help us. We can put that in somebody’s box who didn’t get one or in the end when we are looking to fill up boxes.”

As a franchise network, Home Instead is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Be a Santa to a Senior program nationwide. Since 2003, Home Instead has delivered about 2.2 million gifts and shared the holiday spirit with more than 800,000 senior adults nationwide through the program.