For Bev and Peter Wilson, Glenbrook has been a place of sanctuary from an incredibly tough journey.
Diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia at only 63, Peter was playing rounds of golf just over a year ago but as his symptoms worsened, he was admitted to Glenbrook Residential Aged Care Facility, the Sunshine Coast’s only publicly funded aged-care facility.
“It’s so difficult to give up the care of your loved one but the staff here are absolutely amazing, this place truly is like nirvana for us.” Bev reflects.
Glenbrook’s’ Recreation Officer, Julie West, ensures that all the residents have plenty of activities to enjoy.
“The residents really enjoy getting outdoors so we do a lot of our activities in the outdoor areas. We do gardening outside, we’ll take our sporting activities outside and on beautiful days we take our arts and crafts outside.” Julie says.
“The residents really enjoy getting outdoors so we do a lot of our activities in the outdoor areas. We do gardening outside, we’ll take our sporting activities outside and on beautiful days we take our arts and crafts outside.” Julie says.
In 2017 Wishlist funded a sensory garden for residents to enjoy, allowing them to expand their recreation offering to include gardening.
Since then, the residents have grown enough herbs to use them in their pizza making classes.
Since then, the residents have grown enough herbs to use them in their pizza making classes.
“The gardens are beautiful but when it comes to summer it does get incredibly hot and a lot of residents are on medication which makes them photo-sensitive.” Julie says.
“Having shade sails in the gardens would be a huge benefit to our residents.”
“For the residents to have all year access to the gardens where they’re sheltered from the sun is really important not just for their health and wellbeing but also to enrich their souls and bring a little bit of sunshine into everyone’s life.”
Wishlist is fundraising $20,000 to provide 4 shade sails for the residents of Glenbrook so that they can remain protected from the hot Queensland summer and expand their gardening to new areas around the facility.
For patients like Peter, the shade sails would make a huge difference to their day-to-day lives.
“Peter likes to walk around the facility but obviously that’s a bit difficult as we get into summer and things get hotter and hotter.” Bev tells us.
“For Peter there’s no hope of getting better, the most important thing is his quality of life and the little things such as being outdoors go such a long way.”
By donating a Daisy in the ‘Wishlist Virtual Daisy Garden’ ($25) you can affect real change and make a positive difference to the lives of Glenbrook’s residents – Donate Here
