Remembrance Day 2020 was one to remember for staff, residents and members of the community. 

Abbeyfield houses and homes across the country paused for two minutes silence, watched the service and found more ways to show their support, creating poppy displays, baking, decorating the house and lighting candles. Victoria House in Kew wanted to take things a little further, including asking as many people as they could in their community to paint a poppy on a pebble and leave it on the doorstep of the house. 

Poppies on pebbles at Victoria House

Activities Coordinator, Marilyn initiated the campaign by distributing leaflets to local shops and placing posters outside the house. Staff weren’t sure whether people would take part, but were pleasantly surprised when the doorbell kept ringing to find pebbles left on the doorstep and bench outside. Slowly but surely the collection began to grow with a grand total of 89 pebbles; 70 of which were from people in the local community.

Care Home Manager, Noma Shaikh said:

This year has been really difficult but we wanted to ensure that we made the day special, so when one of our Care Workers, Charlotte suggested asking the community to paint pebbles with poppies, we thought it was such a lovely idea and we were overwhelmed at the response.

The community really got behind the project – it was such a joy for staff and residents to see how many people took part. The lovely collection was used as a focal point during the television service and now takes pride of place around the water feature in the garden.

Poppies worn with pride

There were so many wonderful displays across Abbeyfield, with residents and staff wearing their poppies and badges with pride. This certainly was a day to remember so we thought we'd share a few more photos from the day below. 

We'd like to say a final thank you to all those in the community who got involved by dropping pebbles off to houses, making donations and more. 

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