Tea Cakes and a Choir

As we reported last month, the Rotary Club of Billericay was the founder of our RotaKids club in Quilters School, and has been a long-term supporter of the school since then.  Our Treasurer, Michael Ginn, was delighted this month to present the school with a cheque for £320 towards the cost of postage for its Pen Pals and dementia friendly projects.

Avoiding Isolation

This is a mutually beneficial project which gives the children a knowledge of what life is like for our elderly citizens.  It encourages them to express themselves in letters, and gives the elderly an insight into today’s children, helping to avoid or reduce their isolation.

Club Treasurer Michael Ginn had volunteered at the beginning of the school year, and signed up to be a Pen Pal.  He had already written to his five contact children, so was delighted to accept an invitation from Maureen Lee, the lady who oversees the projects, and go along to the school to participate in the Pen Pals Tea Party on November 22 and meet his Pen Pals.  Youth Officer Peter Greene joined him there.  The Pen Pals project is an attempt to assuage loneliness in some of our older residents by assigning Quilters children to write to them several times a year, and receive replies from the Pen Pals in due course

Excited Children

As we arrived at the school, the door was opened by a smiling pupil who welcomed us, Michael, Peter and one of the visiting elderly adults who had just arrived.  We were taken to a desk in the foyer where three very efficient juniors gave us name badges and noted the name of the adult so that she could be linked up with their Quilters Junior School pen pals.

We were then escorted to the school hall, which was full of excited children sitting at long tables, and eagerly anticipating meeting their pen pals, and each pen pal was escorted to a table to sit with the children to whom they had been writing.  We were served cups of tea and biscuits at our tables by the children, although to their disappointment, we were not allowed to share the biscuits or cakes with them due to the risk of allergic reaction.  However, there were games (Snakes and Ladders, Connect 4, etc.) on each table and the pen pals readily joined in with the children – it was a lot of fun!

Not Just a Tea

Not only was there tea, biscuits and games, but there was also a performance by the “Inter-Generational Choir” comprising the school choir and some of the pen pals towards the end of the afternoon.  The choir entertained us with a variety of songs including “I’m a believer’, “Away in a Manger”, “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” and finished to rousing applause.

It had been such an enjoyable and heart-warming experience. The children were so well behaved, good mannered, friendly and outward going.  What a pleasure it was to be with them.

Encore

The School event was not everything.  We were also invited along to the human kind cafe on Wednesday, December 11, where Quilters Junior School children would be chatting and singing.  They were gathered there from 9.30 am enjoying crafts with their Headteacher, Mike Wade, their teachers, and members of the community. 

They sang Christmas carols and songs, and they lit up the whole cafe with their joy and enthusiasm.  A young girl even performed sign language to Silent Night. 

It was so moving, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  What an enjoyable morning!

Another example of Quilters spreading happiness and joy as part of its anti-loneliness project.