Ready, set, draw – Witney care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Home news

Oct 30, 2020

Residents at a care home in Witney picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2020.

Care UK’s Millers Grange, on Curbridge Road, celebrated all things nature by creating works of art around this year’s theme, ‘a Climate of Change’.  

As part of their event, residents and team members teamed up with St Hugh of Lincoln Nursery School to create paintings, drawings and collages reflecting the effect of climate change on the planet. Their final pieces are now showcased on one of the home’s large front bay windows for everyone in the community to see.    

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘A Climate of Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their environment, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, as well as trips to the great outdoors in their younger years, and how our focus looking after our planet has changed in recent years.  

Alison Parry, home manager at Millers Grange, said: “The Big Draw was a huge success, and we were delighted to be able to partner with St Hugh of Lincoln Nursery School for this year’s celebrations.

“Although current circumstances mean we were unable to welcome members of the community into Millers Grange, we wanted to connect with the local nursery school virtually to take part in the festival this year and do something positive, and The Big Draw offered the perfect chance for us to do just that.

“Residents loved getting creative, so we’re really thrilled to be showcasing the result of our work for the people of Witney to see.”

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival last year, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2020, becoming the main health and social care partner and leading the way in changing perceptions of life in a care home by promoting activity-based care and encouraging other care homes to follow suit. Across the country, more than 70 homes have been getting arty and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘A Climate of Change’.

Miller’s Grange has been designed to deliver the very best standards of care and to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives. The home provides full-time residential dementia and respite care.

To find out more about Millers Grange, please call customer relations manager, Jim MacLeod, on 01993 764730 or email james.macleod@careuk.com

To find out more about Care UK’s partnership with the Big Draw, and for more top tips on how you and your loved ones can get involved at home, visit careuk.com/care-homes/bigdraw

To find out more about the Big Draw festival, please go to thebigdraw.org