What outstanding effort would you like to share?
Home Instead is a local Home Care company that enhances lives and helps our community age in place with our Home Care Hero’s. We provide person centered care and support to family caregivers. Our vision to ensure our community is proactive instead of reactive as we build trust, take the lead, and share our heart. We strive on building relationships with community partners, focusses on innovative partnerships, offer an array of free community resources to support family caregivers and our social action projects such as Be a Santa to a Senior.
What challenge initiated the effort?
As isolation continues to impact seniors and COVID-19 restrictions remain in place, Home Instead is once again launching our Be A Santa to a Senior® program, which supports older adults who may be overlooked, isolated or alone during the holiday season.
Whose idea was it?
Since the program’s inception 18 years ago, Be a Santa to a Senior has helped provide more than 2 million gifts to over 750,000 seniors in North America and attracted upwards of 65,000 volunteers. Locally this will be the 12th year the BASTAS program will support local seniors. Traditionally ornaments would be displayed at various tree locations. Each ornament includes a local senior’s gift request, such as slippers or a blanket. The gifts collected, which are often necessity items such as toiletries, clothing and blankets, make a big impact and help local seniors combat the holiday blues. Gifts would be delivered to the seniors by volunteers after the community wrapping party. Things will look a little different this year as we strive to continue to support seniors and think of innovative ways and keep our community safe.
How did it go from idea to action?
COVID-19 greatly impacted how the Be a Santa to a Senior Program works. For the second year in a row, we have moved to the program running online. Members of the community can visit BeASantatoaSenior.com and enter their postal code to view Wish Lists for local seniors on Amazon Business through December 10th. A personalized greeting can be included with the gift which will be shipped directly to the senior.
Start date:
The BASTAS program will launch Friday November 12th which means the website will be live with a list of local seniors and their requested gift ideas. Here is the link to the live launch https://fb.me/e/1oN9D9i6y Nikki our Community Outreach Coordinator will discuss how the program will work this year and everyone is welcome to join online.
Goal:
We hope to support 600 seniors this year. We want every senior referred to receive at least one gift from their wish list.
Progress:
We have received an array of referrals from organizations, seniors and community partners and are currently building wish lists into Amazon. To date, we are still receiving calls from seniors who wish to receive a gift and be referred into the program.
Measurable outcomes:
We can see the community buying gifts as we can monitor and edit each wish list. We hope that by December 10th, we will see that every senior was supported with a gift
For more information:
www.beasantatoasenior.com
www.homeinstead.com/3009
www.caregiverstress.com
www.readytocare.com
helpforalzheimersfamilies.com
About Home Instead:
Founded in 1994 in Omaha, Nebraska, the Home Instead® franchise network provides personalized care, support and education to enhance the lives of aging adults and their families. Today, the network is the world’s leading provider of in-home care services for older adults, with more than 1,200 independently owned and operated franchises that provide nearly 90 million hours of care annually throughout Canada, the United States and 12 other countries. Local Home Instead offices employ approximately 100,000 CAREGiversSM worldwide who provide relationship-based care services that enable older adults to live safely and comfortably in their own homes for as long as possible. Home Instead franchise owners partner with clients and their family members to help meet varied individual needs. Services span the care continuum – from providing personal care to specialized Alzheimer’s care and hospice support. Also available are family caregiver education and support resources. Visit HomeInstead.ca. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Each Home Instead® franchise office is independently owned and operated. Home Instead, Inc. is a subsidiary of Honor Technology, Inc.