Belong Crewe and school guarantee Santa a warm welcome

Residents and experience day customers at Belong Crewe guaranteed Santa a cosy Christmas by the fire when they collaborated with children from the town’s Oaks Academy to create a life-size fireplace and decorations for Santa’s grotto in the local Tesco store.

The project involved using papier-mâché to create the fireplace structure, before a brick-effect design was added to make a rustic-looking hearth, which was adorned with tinsel and Christmas stockings. The years seven and eight pupils also made other decorations for the display, along with Christmas cards for Belong’s experience day customers.

The fireplace and decorations were presented to the local branch of Tesco by the schoolchildren, their teachers, Belong Crewe resident Audrey Close and support worker Sandra Walley.

Jessica Butler, Senior Support Worker at Belong Crewe, said: "It has been lovely for residents and customers to work alongside the pupils on the art project. We've had such fun, and for those people living with dementia, the interaction with such engaging young children is really therapeutic."

The collaboration is part of an ongoing partnership between Belong Crewe and the Oaks Academy, which has previously seen residents and customers roll back the years to take part in specially organised science lessons.

The initiative to bring people from across the community together to share in the fun of making the Santa’s grotto display was led by Tesco Bags of Help Champion, Cath Blundell, as part of the Cheshire East Connected Communities project.

Last month, Belong Crewe was rated ‘outstanding’ after an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), becoming the first nursing home in Cheshire to achieve such a rating and placing it in the top 1% of care settings nationally.