In Quarter One (April to June) of 2020-21, the project focused on supporting the immediate needs of seniors through existing services and ‘Social distance’ friendly sub-project initiatives. The teams worked to adapt their projects to an online platform and implement new enhanced measures. The project successfully launched three sub-project initiatives in April 2020.
These were:
- The Seniors Centre Without Walls by Seniors Come Share Society – a telephone-based initiative which happened to be a ‘intuitive’ idea and opportune at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program offers an array of programming, available from Monday to Friday.
- Surrey SHARES by Semiahmoo House Society – a story telling project which features both a speaking coach and life coach. As part of the COVID-19 Response Plan, the first cohort is online to ensure the health and safety of all participants.
- Connecting Generations – This initiative creates opportunities to engage in dialogue and to explore differences and similarities of generations. Through developing relationships in a supportive environment ‘Connecting Generations’ strives to reduce the stigma of ‘age’ perceptions of seniors and youth, and focuses on social inclusion, diversity and multicultural perceptions.
The Network continued to support seniors by providing the services listed below.
PICS
PICS supported seniors through its Better at Home Program which offers:
- Grocery shopping and delivery
- Prescription pick-ups
- Wellness calls
- Laundry service
- Transportation
- Meal prep and delivery
PICS also partnered up with IKEA who generously supporting the vulnerable by donating 400 kits for distribution to families in Vancouver and Surrey. These kits include everyday household goods and toys.
City of Surrey
The City of Surrey focused on supporting seniors through the following initiatives:
- Telephone Tree program which offers wellness calls in multiple languages
- YouTube videos for the community on various subject matters ranging from nature to fitness
- The Seniors Engagement Task force team is working with seniors to encourage them to participate in various programming
- Surrey Flattens the Curve – project asks families to share their experiences on what they’re doing to stay busy during this pandemic. Objective of this project is to take a fun and engaging approach to support the community.
- Continuous updates were also available on its website
Seniors Come Share Society
Seniors Come Share Society continued to support seniors through its Better at Home program and COVID-19 initiatives. The services included:
- Meal deliveries
- Reassurance calls
- Art supply packages
- Essentials care packages
- Grocery delivery, etc
Sources
Sources provided support to seniors by:
- Providing wellness calls through its Legacy Shop by Phone program
- Partnering up with Seniors Come Share Society’s Better at Home program
- Assisting seniors with medical appointments for critical conditions – i.e. cancer treatments, dialysis, specialist appointments etc.
- Offering its Volunteer Income Tax Clinic from Wednesday to Friday at Maple Street from 9:00am to 1:00pm. For more information call: 604-542-4357
- Offering Food Bank services on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s with delivery services available for seniors living in the South Surrey/White-Rock area
- Providing trauma counselling through its mental health resource line. Fore more information call: 604-541-4826
Semiahmoo House Society
To better accommodate people that receive services including seniors, Semiahmoo House Society made the following changes to its programming:
- The Culinary program, CULA, is creating meals for first responders and as a way to stay connected with people that are a part of Home Share
- North Campus and South Campus day services are being offered online via the new SHS Online Campus.
FRAFCA
FRAFCA focused on helping Indigenous elders living in Surrey by supporting their 3 major needs:
- Food security – providing weekly personalized shopping and food baskets
- Mental Health – providing wellness checks
- Recreation – purchasing and distributing tablets to seniors as well as teaching them how to use the technology