Local care home presents cheque to local charity

Open Minds was founded in 1999 to provide activities for individuals with a learning disability who live in Nottingham.

Their aim as a charity is to provide a social network for our members so they can make friends and have a safe space to talk about their worries or concerns.

More importantly however, they like to have fun! Open Minds is a small organisation, they rely on a close-knit team of volunteers, staff and trustees to help with the day to day running of things.

The grant had been awarded by Barchester’s Charitable Foundation, a charity that helps older people and adults with a disability or mental health problems across England, Scotland and Wales by offering grants to help people connect or re-connect with others in their local community.

The care home welcomed Sue Poulter, a facilitator at Open Minds and Michael Powell, a member of the group from the charity, to a small gathering in the home’s garden to receive the cheque presented from resident Pauline Bosworth and celebrate being awarded the grant.

Sue Poulter said: “At the moment our service users have a book club where they are writing a book about their life experiences, funny stories about themselves and life at Open Minds and some of the money from our donation with help with the making of this book”.

Michael Powell added: “I really enjoy going to Open Minds as it has a good social group with different personalities. We all get on together and we all support each other and get support from the staff.”

Jodie Rakhra, General Manager at Hall Park, said: “We are always keen to show as much support as we can to local charities by way of it’s not how we give but how much love we put into giving."

Barchester Hall Park care home is run by Barchester Healthcare, one of the UK’s largest care providers, which is committed to delivering high-quality care across its care homes and hospitals.

Hall Park provides dementia care, residential care, and respite care.