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It's two years since Embracing Age launched in Hampshire, and we’ve made some incredible strides in supporting older people. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of so many individuals and groups across the county, we are now linking with care homes and supporting residents in a growing number of areas locally, as you'll see from the many pins on the map below!
Read on to see the positive impact we’ve made together and the exciting initiatives still to come ...
One of our newer volunteers has shared a beautiful story about the friendships she's been building with three residents - relationships that have rebuilt her confidence and given her something to look forward to, just as much as the residents she spends time with.
Well done to "Sylvia's Dream Team" who were the winners of the Embracing Age Big Christmas Quiz. The team consisted of Sylvia, a resident in one of the care homes we support in Hampshire and members of her family - four generations in total!
Sylvia said, "I'm looking forward to going out to a nearby Costa with family to enjoy our prize voucher. Sometimes my daughter will pick up a takeaway Costa and we will sit by the water at Hamble in the summer."
Their winning score was 120 (out of a possible 165 marks), just 4 points ahead of joint second place teams. Thank you to all the individuals and teams who took part in our quiz - together you raised an incredible £550! Your support will enable us to bring companionship to more care home residents this year. The quiz answers are now available via the button below. We plan to produce more fundraiser quiz sheets in the coming year so why not sign up to our quarterly newsletter via the button below to hear when they're released! ![]() Thanks to your incredible generosity, our final Big Give Christmas Challenge figure for 2023 including offline donations is a whopping £18,105! We are overwhelmed and are giving so much thanks! Your kindness means so much to a small charity like ours and will make a huge difference in enabling us to expand our care home friends projects, meaning more companionship and joy for more care home residents in 2024 and beyond. From the bottom of our hearts, huge thanks to everyone who shared our campaigns, held fundraisers, donated, and gave their time to make this happen. And of course big thanks to our Champion, the Reed Foundation, and our private pledge supporter, for their generous match-funding and enabling us to take part. 26/9/2023 0 Comments "Mary's presence in the home has really helped Jan settle in and feel at ease".In March, we appointed Zoe and Sarah as our new area co-ordinators to pioneer Embracing Age in Hampshire. 6 months on and it's staggering to see how much they have already got going!
The local community has really embraced the initiative and the project is already supporting 35 individual care home residents across 14 care homes with trained befriending volunteers as well as lots of craft projects. Read on to hear Zoe and Sarah's update on the amazing difference already being made to residents and others involved in the project, and the exciting things in the pipeline. It's certainly been a summer of unpredictable weather and perhaps you have had plans cancelled or changed due to sudden stormy conditions? The marvellous community behind Embracing Age Isle of Wight did not let heavy rain dampen their spirits at their recent Vintage Afternoon Tea Garden Party fundraiser, pushing on to enjoy a wonderful afternoon and raising over £3,000! Incredible! The money raised will help bring companionship and joy to more care home residents without family and friends or those that are particularly isolated. Rebecca Savage, Isle of Wight Co-ordinator, fills us in on this very special event: The event was held in the beautiful garden of our Island Champion for Embracing Age, Barbara Sargent, and her husband, Alan. Set overlooking the countryside with sheep in the fields and the most beautiful pond adorned with ducks and moorhens who were certainly enjoying the weather more than we were. But despite not being able to enjoy the garden in its full glory, a good time was had by all. Each person was served an afternoon tea on vintage china including sandwiches, three small cakes, a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam, and a pot of tea to share. Additionally, Pimms and prosecco were available for a donation from the camper van served by volunteers Steve and Snoopy Dog. All-time favourite songs from the 1940s onwards were sung by our fabulous solo artist, Alan Wood (who unfortunately did not play a full set due to the rain), and mime artist Ivan Rendell also entertained the guests. Luckily a few hats resisted the wind to stay in place long enough for the Best Hat Competition, which was judged by our Ambassador, Lady Sally Grylls. This was followed by our Auction led by our fantastic auctioneer, Andrew, and the raffle with lovely prizes generously donated. One of the guests commented, "What a lovely happy party!" and a volunteer helper said afterwards, "I really enjoyed it, what a wonderful event. I'm usually in the kitchen but I really enjoyed waitressing." It's always risky thanking people by name for fear of accidentally missing anyone! However, here are a few people we would particularly like to mention:
You can find out more about Embracing Age Isle of Wight here. We have lots of different ways to get involved as an individual or an organisation and for a range of time and skills, and we would love to welcome you into the team to bring joy and companionship to more isolated care home residents across the island.
By popular demand, we held another summer quiz last week, which dare we say it was even better than last year's!
Around 84 people joined in and it was lovely to see people who had come on their own being welcomed so warmly into teams. Sean Carey, a writer for The Chase, was again an excellent Quiz Master, setting the balance perfectly between questions that were hard enough to be interesting but not impossible. Huge thanks to Sean for agreeing to come back and deliver such an enjoyable quiz. We are so grateful to our volunteer fundraiser, Sarah Ricketts, for organising this fundraising social for the second year running and making it a truly fun evening. One guest sent this fantastic feedback: "I just wanted to personally thank you and your colleagues for what was a great Quiz night on Friday. I am a member of a Quiz team and we try to go to all of the local charity Quiz nights. We all said that this was one of the best we have been to." Special thanks also goes to:
And of course huge thanks to everyone that came along and made it such a fun evening, and supported us so generously! Overall the evening raised a fantastic £1,115 - which will make a huge difference to our projects befriending care home residents and supporting informal carers. A huge success, a highly enjoyable evening and one we are keen to repeat! If you'd like to hear about upcoming events, you can sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.
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