A group of creative schoolchildren have helped care home residents make colourful bunting to celebrate a special birthday.
Their colourful designs are being strung around Pendine Park’s Gwern Alyn and Hillbury House in Wrexham to mark the 40th anniversary of the pioneering care organisation.
The pupils of Ysgol Bodhyfryd, a Welsh language speaking primary school in Wrexham, have also designed and hand drawn a giant birthday card which they presented to the residents and staff.
Gwern Alyn was the first care home established by Pendine Park care organisation in Wrexham.
It is owned and run by Mario Kreft MBE and his wife, Gill, who bought the red brick building, transformed it into a residential home and officially opened it in December 1985. It started with just 10 staff members caring for 14 residents.
They went on to expand their care organisation in 1989, purchasing a 12-acre site on Summerhill Road, Wrexham, and opening five care homes there.
Now, four decades later, the couple operate nine care homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon, with 440 beds and more than 860 employees.
They anticipate welcoming their 6,000th resident later this year.
Pupil Eliza, aged 10, was delighted to play her part in the anniversary celebrations.
She said: “We made one super-large card with a floral decoration on the front and then each of us also created a smaller card with our own designs on to show how much we love coming here. The smaller cards were then glued into the main card giving it a sort of pop-up effect.”
Eliza, who wants to be a doctor when she gets older, said she hugely enjoys every visit to the care home and loves to chat with residents and hear all about their life stories.
The school has a long-standing bond with Gwern Alyn and Hillbury residential homes after successfully running a ‘twinning’ arrangement for more than a decade.
The inter-generational friendship first started about 12 years ago when Gwyn Jones, the father of Ysgol Bodhyfryd’s then deputy head, Heulwen Harris, became a resident at Hillbury House.
During frequent visits to see her father, Heulwen had the brainwave of developing a close rapport between the school and the care homes whereby pupils would make regular visits and get to know some of the residents.
Heulwen said: “It made perfect sense to me to develop a friendship between our two organisations. The school is walking distance from here so within easy reach for small groups.
“Sadly, these days many children don’t get to see their own grandparents often as family members tend to live longer distances from each other and some don’t have grandparents at all.
“It’s the same for the residents here, sometimes for various reasons they are unable to see their grandchildren very often.
“So, they miss out on mixing with people at the opposite end of the age spectrum to themselves. Organising these visits by small groups of our year five age pupils seemed a perfect solution to this.”
The visits proved a huge success with a genuine affection having formed between some pupils and residents over the years.
Hillbury enrichment activities co-ordinator Anita Moran said: “It has been a joy to witness to be honest, how freely some of the residents are able to talk to pupils. Some strong connections have been made.
“A few years ago we had one pupil who carried on visiting even after she had moved on to high school and eventually she came to work with us on staff for a while.
“Our residents get lots of pleasure from interacting with the children and hearing about what they have been doing at school.”
Teaching Assistant Mandy Warner, said they have helped with numerous activities from art to music and gardening.
She said: “We even joined the residents on a visit to Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod one year where we all took part in an arts workshop.
“We all have some fabulous memories which wouldn’t have been possible without these visits and the work Heulwen has done to maintain the friendship.”
Even though her father passed away some years ago and she has now retired from teaching Heulwen still acts as a liaison officer between the school and the care homes.
She helps arrange dates for visits and updates the school on current events at Hillbury and Gwern Alyn, such as the current year-long 40th birthday celebrations.
Anita thanked Heulwen for her hard work and said it was a beautiful surprise to receive the giant birthday card from the pupils.
She said: “It is so unusual and wonderfully created with lots of thought gone into it. We will definitely be displaying it somewhere prominent for all to see and enjoy reading the different messages.”
Pupil Charlotte, aged 10, said: “I love coming here and having a good chat with the residents. Some of them are really talkative and have interesting stories to tell.”
Resident Gwen Davies-Barrett said the days when Ysgol Bodhyfryd visits are always full of fun. She said: “The children are little bundles of energy and there are always lots of lovely smiles when they are around.”
She enjoyed making the bunting alongside them and said: “The 40th birthday is a big event which deserves to be celebrated in style.”
