A Solihull care home has been reaching out through the pandemic to keep their residents connected to the community.
Residents of the new Fountains Care Home in Shirley have been exchanging correspondence with two teenage sisters as part of the national Letters of Kindness scheme.
Bethany, 15, and Lily Platt, 13, from Redditch approached the Barchester care home during the pandemic as they wanted to spread a little joy to people who were isolating.
Bethany said: “We wanted to make a difference and be able to look back at this time and be able to say that we helped”.
Both girls wrote lovely letters telling residents all about themselves and what they were enjoying while school was out and are continuing the correspondence even now they are back in the classroom.
They talked about their varied interests from playing for a local football team and learning the ukulele.
Fountains residents have been delighted to read all about the sisters lives and have penned replies about their own unique views of the world as a different age group.
On Friendship Day the residents made friendship bracelets for the girls with their names in beads. Bethany said: “It was such a lovely surprise to receive them and we haven’t taken them off since!”
In return the girls made resident 91-year-old Doreen Taylor, who is an avid reader, a bookmark as a keepsake from her pen pals.
The residents in the 80 bedded home are now looking forward to the time when they can invite Bethany and Lily into Fountains to meet everyone in person and cement their friendships.
91-year-old Doreen Taylor proudly displaying her new bookmark from her pen pals
