Intergenerational VE day project brightens residents' days | News

We believe at Saxonwood that it is beneficial to involve children with our projects, this brings joy and happiness to our residents. This intergenerational project has brought residents, staff and their children together even during a lock down to make the best VE Day bunting for Saxonwood.

We had three working groups:

Knitting club got really involved with crocheting the rope for the bunting, they spent the morning working together to make it as long as possible. After knitting club had finished our knitting expert Kath continued to make it even longer over another two days.

Kath knitted the rope for our bunting. Kath said: ‘’I am not a very arty person, I loved the idea and I was happy to take part in this project using my knitting skills’’.

Saxonwood Arty group:

We have keen artists here at Saxonwood who really enjoy getting stuck into all types of arts and crafts, they spent a morning colouring and putting their own stamp of creativity onto the bunting flags. These have been cut out and laminated to create a more sturdy and shiny flags. Our session wasn’t only about the art, it gave the residents a chance to tell their stories and reminisce about their past times when thinking about the war and when it ended.

Rosemary said: ‘’ It is so good to involve these youngsters in our VE day project. They need to know the significance of the day and to appreciate what went before. And this project will help to make them feel less isolated – part of the family of Saxonwood’’

David was keen to get his hands on this project and wanted to keep his flag very patriotic and colour with only red, white and blue. He really liked that his had many planes on.

Marjorie is a regular artist here at Saxonwood and attends the arty groups often, she spends quality time making sure her creations are thought out and in her way ‘perfect’. She was talking a lot about her past time experiences when celebrating the end of the European war, how her family would create bunting and have a tea party.

Joyce enjoys an arty session in general, but this one she said was very meaningful to her, she describes herself has a soldier’s daughter and this gave her a chance to put her own self into a project that coincides with this. She felt happy that she was working with others and could express her feelings.

Staff’s children’s involvement:

As we started the project it was clear that our residents were missing the usual input from the primary school children next door, they commented about how it would have been nice to have them here painting with them. We suggested that we take some plain flags home for our children to colour and get creative too, when we explained this to our residents they were over the moon that the children were involved and were excited to see their creations.

This worked well both sides of Saxonwood, gave the residents a sense they were not alone in this and also the children were excited and happy to be able to take part too.

Mihaela and Gabi said that it was a great project to be able to connect with their mum and also connect with the residents she looks after at work.

Mia said: I was very happy to help make the bunting for the residents at saxonwood. I enjoy painting and drawing and bringing the generations together.

Little Jake had a great morning testing out and tasting the paint to create his own bunting flag, with help from his mummy he was able to give us a great contemporary style flag.

To finalise this project we have brought all the flags together, residents chose which flags they wanted to put on and how they were arranged and then we attached them to the handmade rope, and hung them.

Look what we created: