Italian care home residents get Xmas gifts

The project called Santa's Grandchildren has voluntary donors sign up online every year to make wishes come true for elderly people.

Alzano Lombardo:Celestina Comotti is one of 40 residents of a nursing home in Alzano Lombardo who received a special Christmas gift this year from a total stranger.

However, perhaps more than ever in 2020, people in nursing homes have had little contact with the outside world for their own safety, so such Christmas acts of generosity are particularly welcomed.

In Alzano Lombardo, located in Italy's Lombardy region, the epicenter of the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy, a simple Christmas card has the power to bring Celestina to tears.

"This initiative was initially welcomed in our home as a means to give a new birth to contacts with the outside, to see if we could have our grandparents meet people from far away that might want to 'adopt' one of our residents you could say," explains Maria Giulia Madaschi, manager of the Rsa Fondazione Martino Zanchi nursing home.

Whether the gift is a shawl or an alarm clock, the emotions run high.

"The coronavirus has really had an impact of the life of nursing homes, many even became (virus) hotspots, so it was important to me to be able to bring some light-heartedness even with just a small gift and so I decided to participate," says one of Santa's grandchildren Irene Schiavone.

Laughs and tears are shared between a 'grandchild' and a 'grandparent' meeting for the first time, perhaps the beginning of a long-term relationship.

The voluntary grandchildren can pick their grandparent based on interests and wishes displayed on the project's website, making the connection more intimate.

The project started three years ago, and presently involves 228 nursing homes for elderly in Italy.

This year some 5,700 presents were sent to elderly nursing home residents all over the country, and 40 of those were for the Alzano Fondazione Martino Zanchi residents.

"We see that the residents we have here give us the energy to go on, so we are keeping strong, our intention is to keep going by trying to offer these small moments of happiness," said Madaschi.

While the goal may be to make the elderly feel less lonely, it is clear that the power of the connection goes both ways.

One of the volunteers, Caterina Damiano, lost both of her grandparents this year but says this way she can remain a grandchild.

Palmiro Tami, 81, can't believe his eyes when he opens his gift to find a cap with the emblem of his favourite football team Atalanta.

"Atalanta, Atalanta, Atalanta, it's my favourite (football) team," he says raising his arms with tears in his eyes.

Whether kilometers away or just a window apart, it would appear no one has forgotten these residents this Christmas - even local musicians have come together to play Christmas songs to the residents.

Visits by relatives to nursing homes in Italy are currently being restricted again or banned altogether.

The true death toll of the pandemic in Italy, currently the highest in Europe, is still unknown.

AP