History of Hartlepool group raises £14,000 for dementia friendly gifts

A generous Hartlepool fundraising group has celebrated five years of support for care home residents living with dementia.
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The History of Hartlepool Group has given out over £14,000 worth of gifts to entertain and stimulate residents with Alzheimer’s and other conditions.

They were bought with the proceeds of six popular DVDs made by the history group featuring brilliant photographs and cine film of Hartlepool through the decades donated by the public.

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History group treasurer Stephen Close along with committee members Roger Codner and Mary Ann Hodgson began the project out after a successful Facebook local history page gathered thousands of images and videos of the town.

Donna Robinson activities co-ordinator at Dinsdale Lodge in Seaton Carew, a home resident and Stephen Close of the history group with some of their latest dementia friendly gifts.Donna Robinson activities co-ordinator at Dinsdale Lodge in Seaton Carew, a home resident and Stephen Close of the history group with some of their latest dementia friendly gifts.
Donna Robinson activities co-ordinator at Dinsdale Lodge in Seaton Carew, a home resident and Stephen Close of the history group with some of their latest dementia friendly gifts.

Stephen said: “We decided to put to good use the collection of images we had and make a DVD to sell to our 24,000 members and it escalated.

“We now have a set of six DVDs which sell from our office in York Road.

“We have hundreds of expat members around the world that still feel passionate about the town and hundreds of our collection have been dispatched to the other side of the world.”

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More than 3,000 of the DVDs have flown out the door in total. Each one has a slightly different theme including a special one dedicated to the bombardment during the First World War.

All of the profit from the collection is spent on gifts of entertainment and stimulation which are distributed among the town’s 18 care homes.

Every year they deliver £240 worth of presents to each home.

Gifts have included old fashioned board games, music quizzes and authentic replica magazines, karaoke and electric bingo machines, floor bowls, and videos and books relating to the 1930s to 1960s.

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Stephen added: “Although our sales have slowed down and stock is diminishing, we would like to continue our distribution this year and would love some small cash donations to help us out or even if we sold a few extra DVDs it would be a great help.”

Copies of the remaining DVDs are available for £6 each from Just Blinds on York Road.