By Deborah Anderson
EVERY Friday you could hear the laughter and chatter coming from a pensioners’ lunch club as old pals caught up with one another and shared stories.
The lively meeting was something the regulars at the Hearty Lunch Club, run by community group Heart of Scotstoun in Glasgow, looked forward to. However, when lockdown struck the shutters came down on the club and its people found themselves isolated in their homes.
Knowing that some of the more vulnerable members of the community might be in need a bit of help, the Heart of Scotstoun volunteers turned their service around to become a meal delivery service.
They are just one of the amazing community groups we are highlighting as part of The Herald’s Tackling Loneliness – Keep Scotland Connected series. Our aim is to show how you can reach out and do your bit for Scotland’s older generation during this unprecedented festive season when families might not be able to be together.
According to an Age Scotland survey almost 6 in 10 Scottish older people (almost 600,000) were concerned about seeing family and friends this Christmas. While 15 per cent, or around 157,000, expected to feel lonely this Christmas. More than four in 10 (41 per cent) said they wouldn’t have got through the year without their friends (428,000) and almost 1 in 10 (9 per cent) or 94,000 said they wouldn’t have got through the year without the kindness of strangers. The survey was conducted by Yonder online and telephone omnibus research polling for Age UK, with a sample of 194 people aged 65 plus in Scotland.
Months on from the initial lockdown period Heart of Scotstoun is still providing meals to those who are struggling and is even planning to make sure that people have a Christmas Day meal they can pick up or have dropped off at their doorstep.
“We would normally have around 200 people come along to our Christmas lunch every year, but this yearly sadly we just can’t do that,” said centre manager Amanda Quinn. “It was one of the highlights of the year and everyone had a great time. This year we are having to do things slightly differently, but we still want people to be involved and enjoy a special meal at Christmas.”
Volunteers will begin preparing the festive food next week and will have their sleeves rolled up ready for the Christmas cook off with pots of lentil soup on the go, a main course and pudding all being put together.
“We will be preparing around 80 Christmas dinners and nearly half of those will be for older people,” added Mrs Quinn. “They will be ready to collect on Christmas Eve so people have something nice to eat on Christmas Day and if you can’t manage down we will deliver to those who need a bit of help.”
Heart of Scotstoun works with food surplus organisation FareShare. Surplus supplies from the food industry are redistributed to charities across the UK to help tackle food poverty and waste.
Mrs Quinn added: “We don’t yet know what will be on the menu yet. As we work with FareShare you don’t know quite what you will get until the day, but we’ve never not had a turkey. There will certainly be a lot of potatoes for us to peel.”
During lockdown the volunteers prepared and delivered 80 meals a day for free and when restrictions eased they adapted the service.
“There was still a need for help, but we had to change it slightly as we couldn’t continue to supply the meals for free. However, we knew there were people out there who might not be able to cook for themselves and still needed our help so we turned it into a £5 meal bag. There are two soups and three main courses and is enough to last someone on their own for a few days.”
This year the charity has still been able to involve the local community with the Christmas build up. Children from Scotstoun Primary School have been collecting items to be included in goody bags of essentials to those receiving meals.
“We have been putting together essentials bags with things like pasta, tins, packets and even toiletries and the community and Scotstoun Primary have been a great help. Usually the children would come along and sing to the pensioners at our Christmas lunches and even though they can’t do that this year they have still wanted to help out,” added Mrs Quinn.
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