‘Our residents can’t get to the farm - so can you help us bring the farm to them?’
LOUTH CARE HOME HOPING TO FULFIL RESIDENTS’ WISHES
A CARE home in Lincolnshire is pulling out the stops for an experience day for its residents, the likes of which they will have never seen before.
Louth Manor Care Home has a large number of residents who are from the farming community and had hoped to take them to visit a farm.
However, as Debbie Clennell, activity lead, said: “So many are in wheelchairs and, even with our minibus, we couldn’t get that number on board.
“It was our home manager, Lucy Blackburn, who said, ‘why not turn our garden into a farm?’. We do have a huge garden here. Now it’s up to the activities team to make it happen.”
Debbie and her colleagues, Zoe and Deborah, started putting feelers out and there are already pledges of chickens, guinea pigs and the possibility of a Shetland pony paying a visit to Louth Manor on Sunday, June 2.
Debbie said: “One lady is bringing a small horse in, she’s going to let our residents strip down the saddle and bridle, clean them and put them back on.
“There is going to be a tractor parked in the car park. We have quite a lot of retired farm folk in the home – some are wives of farmers, some are farmers – and a few are living with dementia.”
It is Louth Manor’s hope that people will be able to bring along more livestock, including uding goats and pigs, as well as some hand tools for farming/gardening that the residents can handle and reminisce about. The home has requested some bales of hay, “either to loan or buy reasonably”, reasonably , and some old garments that the residents can use for a spot of scarecrow making. Debbie said: “We hope that some retired farmers or young farmers will want to come along on the day, have a cup of tea and some cake and have a chat with our residents.
“For our ‘townies’, we think it will be something different for them to experience as well. They will never have had that experience of farm life.”
Each year Yorkare runs an incentive across its homes, with this year’s entitled “Inspire 24”.
The idea is to “wish it, dream it, do it”, with residents coming up with wishes and the staff finding ways to make them come true. Debbie said that this week, a number of residents who fancied a return to ice-skating after 50 years will be doing just that, in wheelchairs. “Fortunately we have some staff who can ice-skate.”
Other fulfilled included doing dreams have fundraising for breast cancer with a resident who was diagnosed with the disease. The home also linked her up with a local cancer charity shop where she volunteers a couple of times a week. Another gesture by the home was providing a resident who was a keen artist before he had a stroke with some watercolours and brushes, and providing a married couple who live there with a replacement golden anniversary rose after they had to leave their original rose behind.
Debbie said: “We like to do bits for the community as well. We saw the Ark [ animal rescue] on TV and collected some things for them and we had teddy bears and soft toys donated and we took them to a children’s home in Skegness just before Christmas.”
Anyone who can help Louth Manor Care Home with the farm day can find them on Facebook or can email activities@louthmanor. co.uk
We hope that some retired farmers or young farmers will want to come along on the day.
Debbie Clennell