Postcards of Joy Delivered to Buxton Care Home Residents

A Buxton care home has seen a flurry of mail with deliveries of joyful postcards, thanks to a partnership with local church members.

Portland Nursing Home paired with local Buxton Parish Churches earlier this year in order to enable residents to make new connections with local people through receiving postcards.

Since August, Church members have been mailing in personalised hand-written postcards and letters to Portland Care Home, telling residents about themselves and their lives in order to make new friendships.

Emilie Shrimpton, activities coordinator at Portland Nursing Home, made initial enquiries with the local parish office to see if they would be interested in partnering with the care home in a postcard writing scheme.

Speaking of the postcard writing scheme, Emilie said; “I thought this would be a lovely idea for our residents so they feel connected to even more people in their local community. It’s been so special seeing the reaction of the residents over the last few weeks when they read their postcards from people in Buxton. They are extremely excited to have new pen friends!”

One Portland Care Home resident, Ruth, has taken a real liking to receiving the postcards, and is now planning to write a postcard back to a local church community member, Audrey.

Reverend Liz England, team rector-in-charge of Buxton with Burbage and King Sterndale, said: “We were invited by Portland Nursing Home to send letters to their residents from our Church members. We sent a message to our six congregations in Buxton Team Parish to ask for letters to be written and sent to those in the Nursing Home. Many have loved writing creative letters, even if it was to people they did not know. It is a wonderful idea and we were delighted to be able to join in with it.”