Activities at Leeming Bar Grange Care Home

Residents are overjoyed at Leeming Bar Grange care home in Leeming Bar as Barchester Healthcare has implemented a visiting suite for residents to continue to spend time with their loved ones for the autumn and winter seasons in addition to the outdoor visiting that has been on offer for those able for many months.

Balancing resident wellbeing and safety is at the forefront of Barchester Healthcare’s thinking and they understand how important it is for residents and their family and friends to be able to spend time together in the safest way possible.

There has been much careful planning and preparation for this moment by Barchester Healthcare, who run Leeming Bar Grange care home. It was welcome news for their residents and family and friends as we enter the colder season meaning catch-ups can continue to take place, instead of, or in addition to, outdoor visiting already offered for those able.

What a fun day it was for BBC Children In Need, it was polkadots galore at our polkadot party in which we played traditional party games such as musical statues and Simon Says! Along with enjoying a selection of party food and drinks! All the while we kept things comfy by having a pyjama day.

Chef Janet also kindly created another of her masterpiece cakes for our raffle which along raised £70! Amidst all the fun also took time to think about the core purpose of Children In Need and how we might be able to further help children who need it most. Therefore our lovely residents decided to use their creative talents to make some little Pudsey Bears to send to a local children’s hospice in the hopes of creating some smiles!

In order to help our residents and community pay tribute to loved ones we created a Remembrance garden. Residents decorated wooden crosses and poppies which we then invited residents and the community to dedicate these to fallen loved ones. Resident’s also raised funds for Royal British Legion by selling handmade bookmarks, cards and poppies

It was a beautifully solemn occasion at our Remembrance service with favourite poems and readings and tales of our loved ones. Resident Norma gave some words of wisdom stating “it may be a sad occasion however I have so many beautiful memories; so we must all remember the good times to fully honour someone”. Throughout the run up to the remembrance period residents enjoyed creating poppies to display throughout the home during which we did just as Norma recommends and reminisced with fondness.

Lots of creativity took place on the lead up to Halloween with residents creating decorations  such as ‘Positivity Pumpkins’ as part of our pumpkin decorating/carving competition; these pumpkins were then taken into the community for the children to enjoy. With our creative masterpieces displayed residents and the team got their broomsticks at the ready and engaged in some witchy armchair exercises; lots of laughter was had whilst watching Activities Co-ordinator Kim try to fly on her broomstick!  Music is a firm favourite to lift spirts here at the home so we just had to hold one of our memory lane discos filled with spooky decorations, disco lights, trick or treat goodie bags and of course plenty of dancing and enjoying the music!

Resident’s at Leeming Bar Grange joined in the annual harvest festival by listening to their favourite harvest hymns, reading poetry and religious readings. We began getting into the harvest spirit by joining in the Barchester harvest festival display competition by creating salt dough decorations, painting and writing our own autumn poem at our weekly poetry group. Our fantastic team donated food items which will be sent to Hambleton FoodShare; a local food bank. Resident’s also chose to create some smiles within the community by making cards to send out to those who are in receipt of food parcels

The residents and team created goodie bags for Age UK- North Yorkshire and Darlington and the COVID19- Northallerton Support For Our Community Group to thank the organisations for working tirelessly to support the vulnerable within the community during what has been, and continues to be an incredibly difficult time.

Leeming Bar Grange also created goodie bags for the teams to pass on to those most in need in the community. These bags included items to help promote mental wellbeing such as puzzles, word searches, biscuits, chocolates, and teabags amongst other little treats. The residents at Leeming Bar Grange also created cards as part of their weekly community kindness group in order to create some smiles within the community