Santa's 'Grandchilden' Bring Xmas Cheer To Seniors In Covid Hardest Hit No. Italy Nursing Homes

[appalachiablue]

- Carolina Previtali, 93, ctr; director Maria Giulia Madaschi, L & carer Melania Cavalieri as she talks on a video call with Eleonora Nola who sent her a Christmas present through "Santa's Grandchildren", at Martino Zanchi nursing home, Alzano Lombardo, an area that most suffered the 1st wave of COVID-19, in northern Italy, Dec. 19, 2020.

- 'Santa’s ‘grandchildren’ spread joy in Italian nursing homes.'- AP News, Dec. 24, 2020.

ALZANO LOMBARDO, Italy (AP) — Emotions are running high this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy near Bergamo after months of near-total isolation for its residents.

Long-time resident Celestina Comotti was disbelieving as a staff member read aloud a Christmas greeting from a family peering at her expectantly over a video call.

“Damn!” Comotti exclaimed when nursing home staff confirmed that her well-wishers - 9-year-old Simon, his sister Marta and mother Alessia - were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman dissolved into tears.

“I am trembling,” she said, adjusting her eyeglasses.

Despite a grim year marked by death and loneliness, the holiday spirit is descending on the Zanchi nursing home, one of the first in Italy to shut its doors to visitors after a COVID-19 case was confirmed in the nearby hospital on Feb. 23.

The bearers of glad tidings were the so-called “grandchildren of Santa Claus,” people who answered a charity’s call to spread cheer to elderly nursing home residents, many of whom live far from their families or don’t have any family members left.

The “Santa’s grandchildren” program is in its third year. Last year, it matched 2,550 “grandchildren” with residents of 91 nursing homes. This year, 5,800 gifts were dispatched to 228 nursing homes around the country -- an outpouring that is, in part, a reaction to the devastating toll that the coronavirus has had on the elderly, comprising the majority of Italy’s confirmed 70,000 COVID-19 dead.

This was the Zanchi nursing home’s first year participating in the “Santa’s grandchildren” program. The town of Alzano Lombardo, where the home is located, was one of the hardest hit in Bergamo province, where Italy’s first domestically transmitted coronavirus infections cases were discovered and touched off the country’s deadly spring surge.

Michela Valle, the home’s activities coordinator, said her goal wasn’t so much about fulfilling elderly Italians’ wishes for holiday gifts but “about creating ties.” The program matched benefactors with 43 Zanchi residents this season. Valle hopes that one day, when pandemic eases substantially, there can be in-person meetings...

More, https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-italy-coronavirus-pandemic-holidays-nursing-homes-80812d24bf8b0da6110f23ea8478c0e5

[AmyStrange]

1. Love those pictures and...

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thanks for posting.
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[appalachiablue]

2. The 'Grandchildren' is definitely a successful effort. Seniors rock.

My first real experience being around seniors besides family, was working with a Smithsonian outreach program for recollections featuring reproduction tech and historical objects- early radio, telegraph & morse code, old fashioned sugar cones and hand cranked peach ice cream. We gave group presentations to elders in the community and it was a blast, they were terrific and I learned so much.

[AmyStrange]

3. That was interesting...

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Seniors know so much about the personal side of history, that (in my opinion) getting their input down for posterity IS important.

Anyway, thanks for sharing again.
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[appalachiablue]

4. Elders know a lot & have experienced plenty. One lady

in a group was so happy to see a large sugar loaf/cone, the way it was made & shipped many years ago.

Sugar came in molded cones with tongs/'nippers' used to break off pieces. She remembered them as a child in Russia.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf

[AmyStrange]

5. Learn something new and interesting every day.

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Thank you.
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[Aristus]

6. Santa's grandchildren. They call him Grandfather Claus...