Hampstead Community Centre (HCC) will be celebrating Christmas Day a little differently this year to ensure NW3’s elderly enjoy some festive food.
For the last 35 years, aided by a longstanding team of volunteers, the centre in Hampstead High Street has organised a Christmas Day lunch for up to 100 residents aged over 60 who would normally be by themselves.
In usual times the calendar event would provide carol singing, magic, bingo and a visit from the vicar.
This year, working around Covid restrictions, HCC has organised for a two-course meal to be delivered to pensioners’ homes along with festive hampers, so that residents can have a chat on the doorstep and enjoy some hearty scrub. The centre will then follow up with a phone call.
Emma Brooks, HCC’s administrator who organises the Christmas Day plans with the help of her family, said: “We had to really think about what we were going to do this year because it’s actually invaluable for the people that come.
“They’re normally on their own and they wouldn’t do anything, so it was definitely going to have to happen in some sort of way, and that’s why we’ve chosen to do it this way around.”
Funding for the revised plans has come from The Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust, and through Waitrose supermarket’s Community Matters scheme.
The Christmas hampers will include cards from HCC’s after-school club.
READ MORE: ‘Our soul is coming back’: Hampstead Community Centre on coronavirus and reopening play centre
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