PICKENS — The volunteers and staff who keep Pickens County Meals on Wheels up and running are used to making deliveries, from the kitchen workers who deliver meals to volunteers for their routes, to the drivers who bring the meals to their customers

Monday morning they received a delivery of their own.

Lt. Gov Andre Bauer and his staff from the Office on Aging handed out blankets at Cannon Memorial Hospital as part of the annual Blanket Blitz.

Those 200 blankets will be handed out to Pickens County Meals on Wheels customers at no charge to help keep them warm during the winter months.

The Blanket Blitz is a partnership between Bauer’s Palmetto Tomorrow Foundation, the Duke Energy Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation, which donated over $17,000 towards the project.

Blanket Blitz gives out 3,600 blankets to needy seniors throughout the state.

Bauer’s Office on Aging is weathering the rounds of budget cuts well — so far.

“We’ve been very fortunate this year,” Bauer said. “We raised more money this year than last year.”

That shows that government doesn’t always need a stimulus to work, he said.

“Sometimes government just needs to get out of the way,” Bauer said. “There’s so many families, faith-based organizations, churches, communities, that can help people when they’re having a tough time.

“We have, I think, sent a bad message, that government is there to solve all your problems,” Bauer said.

Bauer said he’s “adamantly opposed” to

both the stimulus package and the government solving social issues.

“They cause a lot more problems than they help people,” Bauer said, adding social issues become generational, with recipients aid becoming dependent on such programs. “Clearly there are people who go through tough times. The problem is, there needs to be a system that encourages people to, at some point in time, help themselves.”

Bauer said his office is dealing with a 23 percent budget cut through furloughs.

“I furloughed myself, to try and lead by example,” he said. “I asked everybody in the office to furlough. We haven’t cut any senior services. We’ve been cutting everything in the office to try and not make seniors feel the pain.”