Lincolnshire Cares held its Afternoon Tea in Caistor Town Hall for around 60 members on Sunday 16^th June 2024.

Chair, Julia Whittaker, welcomed everyone to the party which was free to all who were able to attend. Lincolnshire Cares volunteers provided sandwiches and delicious scones and cakes were made by Kate Jacob. Local singer, Pete Gromshaw sang for the guests and this was greatly appreciated rounding off a very happy occasion.

Every week, Caistor Cares hosts a coffee morning for the town’s senior citizens, but on Monday 2 October the befriending charity — part of Lincolnshire Cares — joined Macmillan’s biggest fundraising event to support those living with cancer.

On Sunday 13^th December, around 20 socially distanced volunteers helped with the packing and delivery of 150 surprise Christmas Gifts to the members of Caistor Cares and Kelsey Cares, which are both groups of the local charity, Lincolnshire Cares.

Lincolnshire Cares, the befriending service that offers friendship and support to people over the age of 60 in Caistor and surrounding areas, is pleased to announce two fundraising initiatives that will enable it to continue to support our vulnerable senior citizens throughout these challenging periods we’re all facing.

Despite the lockdown continuing into the early days of summer, nearly 150 senior citizens in Caistor and surrounding villages were treated to a surprise afternoon tea on Saturday 13 June, courtesy of local charity Lincolnshire Cares.

Under normal circumstances, the group (that originally started as ‘Caistor Cares’ back in 2016) would have been holding its traditional Summer Party around this time. But with the global pandemic affecting all kinds of social gatherings, it was instead decided to bring a little bit of summer directly to the area’s senior citizens, in the form of an ‘afternoon tea’ package, delivered directly to their doors.

As such, a group of volunteers went out of their way to pack, label, collate and deliver a special food package to all the elderly residents in the area who would normally attend the charity’s seasonal parties, regular coffee mornings and other social events, as well as benefit from the dedicated befriending service that the group operates.

Caistor Town Hall was a hive of activity on the morning of Saturday 13 June, with Lincolnshire Cares volunteers donning all the necessary PPE before being kept busy making and packing the afternoon teas ready for collection. Another wave of helpers then turned up to distribute the goods around the town’s seniors and even further afield into the neighbouring villages. In all, around 140 afternoon teas were delivered, much to the surprise of those on the receiving end – some of whom were quite emotional to be remembered and thought about during these challenging times.

“Being able to surprise our ‘members’ with this afternoon tea package was the result of a great team effort and one of the many highlights of our charitable work,” said Lincolnshire Cares founder Chris Robey. “They were extremely well received and we had several of our elderly recipients welling-up with tears on their front doorsteps!

“On behalf of Lincolnshire Cares I’d like to say huge thank you to everyone who was involved, from inception to delivery. We are very grateful to Caistor Town Council, West Lindsey District Council and the Volunteers for Caistor group, who have all made kind donations to help pay for these lovely teas – and we’d also like to thank Kate Jacob for providing around 145 of them altogether!

“We were excited to celebrate the launch of Lincolnshire Cares in this way with our senior residents – albeit from a safe distance – and we are now looking forward to organising lots of social events with them in the future, as well as helping out more towns and villages around Lincolnshire. We currently have about 140 members and until we can visit them in person again, we will continue to support them with our popular telephone befriending service.”

For more information about this local voluntary organisation which offers friendship and support to people over the age of 60 in Caistor and the surrounding villages, please visit www.lincolnshirecares.org or call Chris Robey on 01472 851189.

These extraordinary times have certainly had a dramatic impact on Lincolnshire Cares and all its activities. Having taken the difficult decision to cancel all our social events until Government advice deems it safe to continue our face-to-face activities as a charity, we made a swift switch to telephone befriending as the best option to help reduce social isolation throughout the pandemic.

We suspended all befriending visits in early March but offered every one of our members (as well as those who attend our coffee mornings and other social events) the chance of having a weekly phone call as an alternative way of providing support and companionship.
This telephone befriending service has been extremely popular and we are now in regular phone contact with more than 75 senior citizens in Caistor and district.

While it is extremely sad to think that our portfolio of social events (including weekly coffee mornings, Wednesday socials, afternoon tea, summer and Christmas parties) may be on hold for some time, we are looking forwards to reuniting our Lincolnshire Cares community whenever circumstances allow this to happen safely.

We will continue to provide our telephone befriending service until then, so if you are aware of any senior citizen in Caistor, the Kelseys and surrounding villages, that could benefit from our service, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch by calling Lincolnshire Cares on 01472 851189.