'Snack' product helps seniors in need

A product that allows buyers to pay electricity fees for seniors living in China's remote areas has sold very well among residents of Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province.

The package, resembling a snack and is sold at a convenience store in the city's Qinhuai district, has photos and brief introductions of the seniors on the packages. It also has a QR code for the buyers to pay the fees.

They will pay at least 2 to 3 yuan ($0.29-0.43) toward the seniors' bills when they scan the code. Each package, with no real food inside, contains a piece of paper with a message.

The messages, written by the seniors, include their feelings about life and what they want to tell the public.

More than 120 packages were sold on the first day, and 72 people paid fees.

A college student in Nanjing, surnamed Chen, had the idea of selling the "snack" when she visited the Inner Mongolia autonomous region earlier this year.

"I noticed it was complicated for some seniors to pay their electricity bills, because they didn't know how to pay online. Sometimes the electricity was cut off because they cannot walk the long way to pay in time," she said. "As a college student who knows how to combine package design with online payment, I decided to do something to help the seniors and increase people's awareness of them."

Many people were touched when they opened the packages and read the messages. A video from inside the convenience store showed a girl hugging her mother after she opened the package.

The message she got read: "If you have someone by your side at this moment, please give him or her a hug for me. I no longer have the chance to hug the person I want."