A survey by Age UK has identified that Christmas is the loneliest time of the year for over 1.5 million older people, with those who have lost a loved one struggling the most.
Five Lamps Home Care team wanted to ensure all of their Service Users and elderly people who live in Thornaby and surrounding areas had comfort on Christmas day and ensure that no elderly person felt alone.
In 2018, one of the Five Lamps Home Care, Care Assistants, Bethany Bibi created an appeal for gifts for the elderly. The appeal was a huge success and each and every one of the Service Users received a gift. They also partnered up with local Care Home, Hillcare to deliver gifts to residents in the care homes who had no family and wouldn’t be getting any visitors or gifts at Christmas time.
The feedback from the appeal was overwhelming, with Service Users reporting to their Care Assistants that the unexpected gift, was the only one they had received on Christmas day and they were very grateful for the kind gesture.
To follow on from the successful appeal, Bethany Bibi decided to run the appeal again for Christmas 2019. Once again the appeal was a huge success and we received donations of gifts by local businesses, members of the community and also staff within Five Lamps.
The gifts once again made a massive difference and helped lots of Service Users, many of those whose only Christmas interaction was a 30minute call by one of their Care Assistants.
When delivering the gifts one of the Service Users said,
“Thank you so much, this is the second gift I have received this year, last year my husband died during the Christmas period, so I have been feeling down, however, this has really lifted my Christmas spirit!”
In total the Care Assistants delivered 72 gifts in 2019.
As well as a gift, Five Lamps Home Care Service Users were invited to a free Christmas Lunch provided by Labyrinth, on the 23 December 2020 at South Thornaby Community Centre.
The two course meal consisted of a turkey roast with all of the trimmings, along with Christmas pudding, mince pies or sponge cake for dessert. The lunch was a huge success with 61 people from the community attending.