Care Homes Spread the Love with Random Acts of Kindness
From makeovers and foot spas to gifts for children in hospital, Colten Care homes across the region have been enjoying giving and receiving Random Acts of Kindness.
Random Acts of Kindness Week takes place in February every year and urges people to ‘make someone’s day’ with a kind gesture.
Rose Arcellana, Companion Team Leader at Colten Care’s outstanding rated Kingfishers in Barton-on-Sea near New Milton explained: “We discovered the Random Acts of Kindness campaign at the start of the pandemic and have found it to be a lovely way to make an extra fuss of our residents while they have been apart for their families.
“We really enjoy figuring out ways to make each other smile with lovely treats.
“Among those enjoyed by our residents this year were a hair makeover for Betty Kilford and a relaxing foot spa for Pat Dartnell.
“Our special and very popular ‘shop trolley’ was a result of one of our residents’ meetings and has been a great way of helping our residents access their favourite treats such as chocolates, biscuits and toiletries while they haven’t been able to go out to the shops.”
Colten Care’s outstanding rated Woodpeckers home in Brockenhurst in the New Forest got ‘crafty’ for Random Acts of Kindness Week, with residents making flower festooned hearts and greeting cards which they filled with kind messages and handed out to staff, visitors and family members.
The home also approached its local Tesco and Co-op supermarkets and florist Corbin’s for donations, so it could place small floral posies wrapped by the residents on benches throughout the village.
At Abbotts Barton in Winchester residents and staff made up small care packages for children being treated in the city’s hospital, to cheer them up and let them know they were thinking of them.
And at Wellington Grange in Chichester residents enjoyed decorating jam jars, which they filled with tea light candles and placed on the doorsteps of their neighbours in the local community around the home.
Abbey View in Sherborne also took its Random Acts of Kindness ‘on the road’, using the home minibus to place small clay hearts with a kind message on them at different locations around the town. Notes attached also asked people finding them to take a photo of themselves with the hearts and email them back to the home, saying what the gift had meant to them. Abbey View intends to make a special display of photographs they receive.
