On the Isle of Wight, around 2,000 gifts have been given to 37 care homes across the island! 235 residents who are regularly visited by our befrienders or get a monthly Card of Kindness were given a gift bag of around six items chosen personally to their interests and needs, along with a handmade Christmas card and handmade gift tag. Hundreds of additional gifts were given to care home staff to distribute to other residents, including dementia fiddle boxes with handmade toys and handmade dignity bibs, walker frame bags, glasses cases, shawls, blankets, scarfs, coasters and table-side activity mats, as well as toiletries, chocolates in little handmade boxes, puzzle books, colouring books, pens and games. All thanks to our amazing craft volunteers; our wonderful collection box hosts including Tesco Ryde Extra, Boots Newport and several local churches; donations of toiletries from the local community; Wight Aid donating £500 to purchase items; our incredible Christmas Project volunteers for collecting, sorting, wrapping and delivering the gifts; and of course our awesome volunteer champion, Barbara, who keeps us all going with tea and cakes!
In Hampshire, residents at 105 care homes across the county will be blessed with cards or gifts this Christmas! Deliveries are still on-going but we estimate around 750 gifts and 1,200 cards will be given, thanks to amazing crafters and craft groups, children's groups and schools, and even care homes who have started a new initiative making cards with their residents to send to other care homes.
In Richmond, local schools, churches and the community made 30 Hampers of Cheer, decorated joyfully and filled with board games, puzzles books, arts and crafts items, playing cards and toiletries, which were delivered to 13 care homes across the borough. The Cards of Kindness project has also been busy this year making handmade cards to send to care homes in addition to the Christmas cards in the hampers.
In West Sussex, it's been wonderful to see community links forming in our newest area, resulting in 15 large hampers created by our volunteers being delivered to care homes plus a few individual gift bags. The hampers included donated items from Plants4Presents who donated 15 poinsettias, Notcutts Nursery who donated bags of compost, two local Tesco stores, and blankets made by a local church Knit and Natter group. The hampers were assembled by our volunteer teams at Christmas socials we held in two locations, kindly hosted (with delicious homemade refreshments!) by two care homes we work with.
Care home staff and residents in all of these areas have been really touched by the gifts and we've received such heartfelt feedback. The Activity Coordinator at The Anchorage, Pulborough said:
"Thank you very much for all the gifts. The residents were really touched by the thought that went into it. We are very lucky that Embracing Age has found us."
Huge thanks to everyone who has helped make this possible and been part of making the receiving residents feel so valued and connected - especially by making and writing cards, crafting gifts, donating items or funds, wrapping and delivering cards and gifts, organising gift donation points, and visiting local care homes to bring music or offer cheery smiles. We are so grateful to each of you for the enormous difference you have made to the individual residents and care home staff.
If you'd like to help make crafts or cards, or deliver these locally to you throughout the year, please contact your local area co-ordinator to find out how you can get involved:
