The residents at Primrose Croft Care Home have been a part of the Postcards for Kindness scheme for almost a year now. Postcards, letters and works of art from around the world have all been received and the residents have enjoyed responding to with written notes of their own.
As a result of this, the residents have made many friends and connected with people that they otherwise wouldn’t have met. It’s also helped with reminiscence too, from sending letters to families in the past to seeing places they have visited throughout their lives.
One Lady called Dafne, has been a big part of this scheme and regularly sends letters and postcards to the residents at Primrose Croft. She fills her letters with facts and interesting stories from her life which the residents enjoy reading. She also writes her paragraphs in different colours to inject some rainbow love and make them stand out.
Since Dafne started writing to Primrose, she has got to know a lot about the residents personally as well as their likes and dislikes. So Regional Lifestyle and Wellbeing Lead, Pearl, recently arranged a FaceTime call with Dafne, so the residents could meet her properly and see who was behind the wonderful letters.
The residents were really happy to see Dafne when she called and each sat in the lounge to have a chat with her.
Barbara, a resident at Primrose Croft, was one of the first to speak with Dafne. She knew that Barbara had a love for ballet as in one of her letters, she had written about when she used to teach it in America. So Dafne told Barbara about the time she went to ballet class, saying it wasn’t very successful and after that, she didn’t go back.
Many other funny stories were shared and everyone had a brilliant time chatting to her. Ursula, another resident who lives at Primrose Croft said, “We really must make sure that we keep this up now as it has been such a fulfilling afternoon.”
When normality returns, plans are in place for Dafne to visit the home and meet the resident’s face to face, but until then, we'll keep up the calls and regular letters.
Thank you Dafne and everyone else who has been involved with the Postcards for Kindness scheme, as you can see, it's had a really positive effect on the people we care for.