Despite a tight budget, funding for the statewide Meals on Wheels program is one step closer to approval.

Both the S.C. House and Senate included a $2.9 million proviso in each of their budget bills to fund the Senior Meals program, which includes Meals on Wheels, throughout S.C. for the next fiscal year. Now members from both houses must work out a compromise budget bill to submit to Gov. Mark Sanford. The process could take a few weeks.

"He is known to wield the veto power," Frank Adams, spokesman for Lt. Gov André Bauer, said of Sanford. "Then the House and Senate will decide what to override, then we'll know."

The spending passed with a lot of support, probably enough to override a potential veto, Adams added. Bauer, who's office overseas the Lt. Governor's Office on Aging, has been working with legislators to preserve the funding, Adams said.

In Fort Mill, dozens of seniors who count on the Senior Meals program are waiting at the Senior Center at Unity Presbyterian Church with fingers crossed to see if the program is funded.

"I think we need the meals because some of us aren't able to be in the kitchen anymore," Margaret Davis said. "It's a blessing to have a nice meal at least once a day."

"If I didn't have it, I'd starve to death, I don't have money to buy nothing," William Broom said. "I don't get but $10 a month in food stamps, what can you get for $10? Nothing."

Blanche Buchanan and Louise Culp get meals at the Senior Center too, but they also help deliver meals to the seniors that can't make it out to the center. Buchanan drives and Culp takes the meals inside.

"It's good for the people who are shut-ins," Buchanan said. "They look forward to that."

"Some of these old folks only get the one meal a day. Without it, what are they going to do?" Culp asked.

Ella Dixon doesn't know what she would do without the meals program. At 83, she has arthritis and can no longer cook for herself, though she still manages to get to the senior center most days.

"There'd be a way, I'm sure, but it would be rough," she said. "I can't even cook a pan of cornbread no more."