My role helping to put smiles on faces of residents

THIS week, I met with Angela Andrews who volunteers in St Luke’s Home close to Blackrock Castle.

It is a residential care home providing support services to elderly people. They have been operating in their current base on Castle Road in Mahon since 1994, but have been operational for 150 years.

St Luke’s home provides a much-needed service to both permanent residents and for five days a week to day care centre residents.

All of the residents’ rooms are on the ground floor, which allows greater accessibility for residents to landscaped gardens and courtyards.

The main focus at St Luke’s home is giving the residents the best quality of life possible in many different ways. This includes making their days brighter and happier through entertainment, activities and outings. This is where Angela Andrews comes in, she has been volunteering at St Luke’s home for more than 11 years.

Angela lives close by and spends as much time volunteering in St Luke’s as is needed. She gives us an insight to her volunteering work in her own words.

Tell us how you got involved in volunteering at St Luke’s Home?

My mother was actually a resident here before and I got a close up look at the work being done. After my mother passed away in August, 2012, I thought I’d get involved as I had more time on my hands and started here as a volunteer that December. My mother got the best of help here and when you are around here, you’re around a lot of the units and you can see where you can help out.

When I started volunteering here, there were about 40 volunteers but that has dropped to six at the moment.

During and after Covid, myself and another volunteer were screening the visitors to the centre. We would find out who they were visiting and phone the unit to have a carer bring the resident down to meet their visitor.

During Covid, there was an awful impact on everything but the residents here are so resilient and the staff here kept up all the activities, even though us volunteers weren’t allowed in during that time. They were really hard times but now it’s almost gone back to normal.

Volunteering from day-to-day

There are so many different activities happening here for the residents. They come down from their units into the conservatory and they gather together, and have a cup of tea and biscuits. They can knit, colour, read the paper or whatever pleases them.

At 11am on Monday, there was a knitting group starting, with one of the carers who is involved in the activities group who is a knitter. People, before they came in here, they could have been great knitters, then time takes a toll on the hands and here they’re encouraged to take it up again.

There’s bingo also going on at the moment and there could be up to 40 people at the game.

Last week, we had a bus outing to Cobh with some of our residents and we went to a restaurant. We’ve been down to Fota for a trip and out to Lee Valley Golf Club so there is lot’s going on.

I’m basically in the ‘happy happy’ club, so it’s providing light entertainment to the residents through different activities and outings when it’s possible.

I do the bar on a Thursday, and like that now, you get to know everyone’s drink, and who needs special care. Then there might be a sing- song and it’s our job to know what people’s songs are, so if they say they don’t know what song to sing, I can tell them, why don’t you give us this song, and help to get them started.

We have a group that come in, Martin’s music, on the third Thursday of every month and I’d say to the residents they’re coming in now to give ye a break from listening to us singing.

How much time do you give to

volunteering?

I choose to come down two to three days a week but I’m always only a phone call away. I’ll basically come whenever I’m needed.

I could come in on Thursday morning and do a few hours and then go home for lunch. I might come down then again after lunch for the bar but spend an hour giving out tea and biscuits before the bar starts at 3pm.

One person might say, ‘You make a lovely cup of tea, Angela’. You get to know the residents and I might know that a person only wants one plain biscuit and they love that you get to know them well.

What do you get from volunteering

yourself?

We all have our problems but you leave them at the door there before you come in, you put in a shift, and by the time you get back some of those problems are gone. It can be a distraction because you might be at home and some of those problems are multiplying. Some of those problems you had don’t seem to be such a big problem any longer. You come down here and you’re helping these people, but these people are also helping you.

I have to say, as volunteers we are all very well respected here. We aren’t taken for granted and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

To get smiles on people’s faces is a huge thing. I always say when I come in here, if one or two people know your name, then job done. A person might say ‘hello Angela’, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Tell us about your family

I have five grandchildren and four grown-up children - three boys and one girl. One of the boys lives in Australia with his family and another lives in Iceland.

How important is it to have volunteers?

For example, when we go on the bus trips, there has be at least two volunteers, so if Ken, another volunteer, or myself decide we can’t make it today, then it means that the nine residents who are supposed to go on the trip will miss out because they can’t go unless we have enough volunteers to go with them.

This is why it’s so important to have volunteers, because it means so much to the people who we will be bringing on the trip.

You build up friendships over the years down here with both staff, residents and other volunteers. I was out recently for dinner with two other volunteers and an ex-staff member and we’d often have a night out during Christmas. We are really treated with respect here. We’re not stepping on anyone’s toes, we’re entertaining the residents and putting the feel-good factor into the daily lives of each resident where we can.

Stories

We might spend a morning chatting with residents about old times, ‘Do you remember the Arcadia’, ‘Oh I do, and I remember walking home with such a fella’. There is great history and stories that our residents have to share about their past.

I found out that weddings long ago would actually be at 8am. So we are learning lots of history and having great conversations with our residents.

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