CARE home residents and staff in the New Forest have received a heartfelt message of thanks direct from an elderly people’s care centre they have been supporting in war-torn Ukraine.
Volunteers who run the centre, called Big Family, in the second city of Kharkiv, about 25km from the Russian border, recorded a video thank-you for Colten Care and charity New Forest For Ukraine.
It follows donations of no-longer-needed mobility aids, clothes, bedding, nutrition supplies and other items collected at three of the operator’s homes.
The items are handed over to NFFU who ship regular lorry loads of donations to Ukraine from its humanitarian aid hub in Lymington.
The video was played to residents and team members at Colten Care’s Kingfishers in New Milton in a talk given by former respite resident Sheila Darrell and her daughter Sandra Quinn, both NFFU volunteers.
In the film, shot at Big Family, a centre volunteer called Christian speaks direct to camera, explaining that the facility has been running since 2022 and currently has around 50 residents of various ages and medical diagnoses.
Around a third have either had a stroke or unrepaired hip fracture, or both, and need physical therapy to regain the ability to walk and have any measure of independence.
With Kharkiv a strategic target for bombs, missiles and drone attacks, Christian says residents and staff have had to deal with the Russian threat every single day since the start of the war more than three years ago.
In the talk to Kingfishers residents and staff, Sheila and Sandra also gave details of the wider support that NFFU gives to people in Ukraine.
New Forest for Ukraine volunteers Sandra Quinn and her mother Sheila Darrell are pictured on their visit to Colten Care’s Kingfishers care home.