Volunteers rallied together to collect gift bags, cash and other useful donations for residents and staff at Rogallo Place care home in Horsted Park, Chatham.

The initiative began when Horsted Park resident Annie Smith heard that morale amongst residents at the assisted living home was low.

She enlisted the help of friends Sarah Druce and me Nicola Baldwin, and three asked people around the estate to draw rainbows for residents and to drop funds and gifts off at their homes.

"We were careful to maintain social distance and every item that was received was individually wiped down," said Nicola. "We also raised £280 in cash.

"David Cambridge (Annie’s husband) went to Bookers and did a huge shop with the money and we tried to balance the bags with essential items and treats.

"The end result was that for each of the 59 residents we were able to donate a gift bag containing 12 items each including, biscuits, crisps, sweets, body washes/soap, body cream, soup, beans and chocolate and a rainbow painting (thank you to my daughter Charlotte who is 5 for painting 60 this morning!! - with a little help from Mummy and Daddy!)"

The trio of fundraisers, helped by partners Carl, Josh and David, also delivered for residents; 250 books, puzzles, wordsearch books, adult art therapy colouring and pencils, and DVDs.

They also collected items for the 14 carers at the home, including, a large hamper of biscuits, basket of hand creams, a gift bag of body sprays and perfumes, a gift bag of lotions and creams, a gift bag of salts, shower creams etc, a selection of candles and sleep sprays, bags of sweets and chocolates, 32 cakes, a variety of toiletry gift sets and a few bottles of wine.

Nicola added: "We have been asked by lots of people what they can do in the future to help again. We will do something in perhaps three weeks and will focus on things that they particularly ask for however we are asking residents to dig out old DVDs and puzzles and we already have knitting patterns and knitting needles - we just need to source some wool."

"Perhaps our efforts might motivate other communities to do the same in their area.

"Our community is knitting together really well. We join together for the Clap for the Carers On Thursdays, followed by an inspirational song (thanks to Jim and his very loud speakers!) and we’ve danced together to S Club 7 on a Sunday night. We have many Key Workers amongst our community and we are all so grateful to them and everybody out there who is leading the fight.

"I hope that the silver lining amongst this awful situation is that communities are stronger and that some of this community spirit lives beyond the end of this pandemic."

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