Be Santa to a Senior

With Christmas fast approaching, Cornwall Care is expanding its Santa to a Senior campaign to eleven of its homes.

St Austell’s Woodland House activity coordinator Leanne Masters came up with the idea of the local community being able to donate gifts to individual residents last year. The cause proved so popular that each person in the home received six or seven presents each.

“It was wonderful to see the joy on their faces when they opened them,” said Leanne. “I can’t thank local people enough for their generosity, it made such a difference. That’s why we’re now making this a Cornwall-wide initiative.

“The deadline for dropping off gifts to most of the homes is 1 December as everything needs to be quarantined before being presented to the recipients and we need time to organise that. The deadline for Pengover in Liskeard is 17 November.”

Individuals, schools, businesses and organisations are being invited to take part. After getting in touch, each gifter will be sent a short summary of the likes and dislikes of the person they will be giving to so that an appropriate gift can be bought. For data protection purposes, they won’t be given their name but will know if they are male or female.

“We were delighted with the response in St Austell last year, which is why most of our homes are now involved,” said Anita Harris, Cornwall Care’s Strategy and Planning Director. “The pandemic has been especially tough for those living in care and this is a great way of spreading some festive cheer.”