members card iconSign in ?

Brightening the lives of older people

Image 1
Luncheon Club Great Hale 143
Luncheon Club Great Hale 115
Chris Gower And Jean Scott
Luncheon Club Great Hale 81
Luncheon Club Great Hale 58
Image 1 Luncheon Club Great Hale 143 Luncheon Club Great Hale 115 Chris Gower And Jean Scott Luncheon Club Great Hale 81 Luncheon Club Great Hale 58

Older people in Lincolnshire will be able to find a helping hand and listening ear thanks to new support for social inclusion charities and local lunch clubs.

Together with members, Lincolnshire Co-op is raising money for social inclusion organisations and groups through its Community Champions scheme.

A donation will be made each time a member shops in a Lincolnshire Co-op outlet from December to March. Colleague fundraising and the carrier bag levy will also go into the pot.

The money will help social inclusion charities and luncheon clubs around Lincolnshire continue to brighten older people’s lives.

Lincolnshire Co-op Community Engagement Manager Sam Turner said: “This is all about supporting older people in their communities and enabling them to enjoy daily life. Finding transport to hospital appointments or shopping trips and even some household tasks can be tricky on your own, and it’s easy to feel isolated. Lots of people simply want the chance to have a chat and a laugh with someone.

“That’s why social inclusion charities and local lunch groups like these are so important. They really do bring light into people’s lives by providing friendship, activities, transport and other help. The money we raise together will make a real difference to their work.

Support will go to social inclusion charity Community Lincs, which helps communities set up their own Good Neighbour Schemes. Clients can request help for different things, from a trip to the shops to moral support during health appointments, and people living nearby volunteer a few hours to help.

In North East Lincolnshire, Friendship at Home in Cleethorpes runs one-to-one befriending, craft sessions and even exercise classes to boost people’s confidence. Newark Live at Home and North Lincolnshire Age UK also provide vital lifelines for many people and are being supported with the fundraising.

Luncheon clubs across Lincolnshire Co-op’s trading area will similarly benefit from the support. Local food stores are also providing festive treats for a number of local Christmas lunches during December in Louth, Sleaford, Long Sutton, Newark, Grimsby, Horncastle and Lincoln.

Madge Atkinson (pictured below) runs Great Hale Luncheon Club in Great Hale, near Sleaford, which provides tasty food and a place for local older people to socialise on Mondays. Every year she and a trusty team of volunteers hold a three-course Christmas lunch, complete with a raffle and festive live music. Colleagues from Lincolnshire Co-op’s Heckington Food Store and Head Office in Lincoln supported this year’s event by providing mince pies and lending a hand.

Luncheon Club Great Hale 51

A lot of people are on their own and if they come to something like this, they can meet people and have a chat to them, and hopefully they’ll come again and make it a regular, weekly occurrence,” Madge said.

Maureen Harding from Heckington (pictured below) joined the luncheon club around five years ago in need of some companionship.

Everyone is so friendly, and the helpers are brilliant. When you’re on your own, it’s nice to get out and come and meet people. Coming here is a real pleasure,” she said.

Image 5

Gifts collected through a Santa’s Suitcase appeal by travel colleagues will also be given out to help people smile this Christmas, as part of the Community Champions support.

To find out more information about the Community Champions scheme, visit this page


cookie icon Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. These cookies ensure our core functionality works, such as signing into your membership account and keeping our website secure.

We also use analytics cookies to help us make improvements to our website experience by evaluating how visitors use the site. You can manage these cookies by clicking the below button.


More information on this can be found on our cookies page and privacy policy.

cookie icon Manage my cookies

Necessary cookies

We use necessary cookies to enable core functionality on our website such as security, network management and for our membership area to work. You may choose to disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.

To help us continue to improve our website, we’d like to use Google Analytics cookies which will provide us with information on how you use the site. These cookies collect general behaviour information and doesn’t directly identify anyone. More information on how these cookies work can be found on our cookies page.

Confirm