General News
17 December, 2024
Festive cheer comes to Havilah
It’s starting to feel a little bit more like Christmas at Havilah thanks to a unique partnership between a resident and the Maryborough Men’s Shed.
Havilah resident James Pettigrew recently asked the local club to assist in creating three wooden Christmas trees for the most festive time of year.
Made from heritage fence palings, the trees will reside at the Harkness and Raglan campuses as well as The Terrace for all residents to enjoy during the holiday season.
With previous experience creating new objects from recycled pallets, Mr Pettigrew said it was exciting to pick up the hammer and sand off his construction skills.
“I have been a resident here for 12 months and I don’t want to go rusty,” he said.
“I had a farm in Clunes and we were going organic and you can’t buy organic things, so I used to make things out of pallets.
“Someone gave me a picture of someone else who had done [trees] before and our CEO Tracey Saunders got interested.”
Having recently moved into the Harkness campus, Mr Pettigrew said he feels fortunate the aged care facility encourages residents to remain connected with the community.
“From what I can gather, in the past, it has been very insulated here, but now Havilah wants us to go out and do things,” he said.
“We have the intergenerational playgroup come in on Thursday mornings which is a lot of fun.
“I’ve been involved in organic gardening and Ms Saunders had built for me multiple wicking beds and we have vegetables in that at the moment.
“I’m just really excited to see the decorations go on the trees.”
The Maryborough Men’s Shed aims to reduce social isolation and enhance overall wellbeing in the community by allowing retirees to connect through trade.
According to Maryborough Men’s Shed secretary Greg Warren, the local club is always enthusiastic to participate in unique local projects.
“It gives our members who are in that retirement age like myself a chance to try something new,” he said
“We like variation in what we do, we don’t just mass produce items, we like to differ things and when Christmas has come around we have done variations of this.
“It was very interesting to be involved in and we can go on from here, they might come and say can you do something a bit different next year or even for Easter.”