15.01.2018

Thanks to the efforts of everyone who decided to give a New Year’s gift for the elderly, 23,606 gifts were collected in Moscow, with a further 30,638 donated by visitors to the capital’s MEGA shopping centres.

All the gifts went to the homes of elderly people from various Russian regions. Volunteers handed out presents to tens of thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers living in residential homes in Moscow, Kaluga, Tver, Ryazan, Kostroma, Tula, Yaroslavl, Pskov, Kirov, Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod. This year, gifts were given to people in the regions living alone and in poverty in villages and hamlets.

“Social workers from local social service centres visit these people twice a week. They hand out the presents and send us a photo report. These elderly people find it difficult getting out of the house. They don’t see many people from one day to the next so your gifts come as a wonderful surprise to them and bring them even greater joy”, the official Joy in Old Age Facebook page says.

The gifts included a 2018 wall and desk calendar, warm socks, grandfather T-shirts (size XL upwards), a grandmother nightgown (size 50 upwards), soft warm slippers (size 38 upwards and size 41 upwards for grandmothers and grandfathers respectively), hand cream, soft sweets (without nuts) and confectionary (marshmallows, pastilles, jellies). Each donor could include a signed best wishes card if they so wished.

The elderly are always in need of puzzle magazines, electric and disposable razors and shaving cream, bed linen, radios, creative items such as colouring books, pencils and crayons, nappies (3 L and 4 XL) and absorbent incontinence pads (60×90) for those who can’t get up. For more detailed information, log onto the Joy in Old Age website.

In its message to all those who helped collect New Year’s presents, Joy in Old Age stated “We go into 2018 with great enthusiasm and believe we can bring some cheer to the hearts of so many grandmothers and grandfathers. We’re happy when we make other people happy. Let the joy you brought at New Year be repaid a hundred times over to you!”

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2018/01/15/podarki-pensioneram/