Council helped to put together 1,000 hampers as part of Keep Well campaign

Westmeath County Council's 'Keep Well' campaign helped to put together 1,000 care packs and 1,000 food hampers that were distributed via community groups all over the county in the run-up to Christmas.

The ‘Keep Well’ campaign builds on the ‘In this Together” campaign that happened earlier this year and aims to support people and communities in being resilient through minding their physical and mental health and wellbeing over the winter and through to the spring.

In a detailed presentation to members of Westmeath County Council on Monday week last, Annette Barr Jordan and Mary Stuart from the community section of Westmeath County Council said the 'Keep Well' campaign is aimed at showing people of all ages how to mind their physical and mental health by adding healthy and helpful habits to daily and weekly routines to keep up resilience and wellbeing through winter and into spring.

Annette explained the role of the local authority was to develop a plan for the county to look at services and projects that could support that. She gave examples liken the establishment of the community helpline, the community response forum and then speaking to providers like the libraries, Westmeath Sports Partnership and the arts office to see if they could provide outreach services. One example of this she mentioned was a befriending service where people could get a call or calls several times a week in conjunction with Westmeath Community Development.

Two sub-committees were formed on the themes of the campaign, the first dealing with staying connected, managing your mood and keeping active, then the second looked after switching off and being creative.

In all, Ms Barr Jordan explained that the plan has 40 different actions all around the county around these themes, two of which were putting together 1,000 care packs with chocolates and magazines etc, along with 1,000 food hampers, in association with the HSE and Westmeath Community Development that were distributed by volunteers from over 21 groups in all areas of the county.

Giving a flavour of others planned for the coming year, the council official said community alert schemes are being extended and revitalised as part of the 'Keep Well' effort, while IT training for older people, and Virtual Santa was put in place before Christmas for several Family Resource Centres. Programmes will also be rolled out in sport, music, including one involving older people using percussion and bodhran all done with social distancing in mind, while a transport music reminiscence project is also proposed. A 'Music on the Green' type event is another initiative planned for ten areas of Westmeath including Moate, Athlone and Castledaly in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Mary Stuart dealt with some of the projects planned under the switching off and being creative themes developed by the second sub-committee. Among the actions planned here include creative therapy sessions with Hazel Greene, an online programme to make use of creative spaces by examining podcasting, coding etc, mental health and eating workshops, an author visit and talk with Machan Magan, and the continuation of a successful online book club with over 100 members.

Festival in a Van, where music is brought to a care home will be extended in the New Year having visited several venues before Christmas successfully.

Councillors were full of praise for the campaign outlined with Green Cllr Louise Heavin declaring it a great initiative with a lot of work involved in bringing it all together. She wondered if the details will be on a website or a booklet, while Cllr Aoife Davitt asked that community advertising boards be used to promote the groups and events. Cllr Davitt also asked that Mullingar be included in 'Music on the Green' in absence of the Fleadh.

All details will be on the Westmeath County Council website and a newsletter will also be sent out via An Post, Ms Barr Jordan replied, while fridge magnets and community service cards with essential numbers and supports are also being developed for distribution.

Cllr Denis Leonard (Lab) thanked them for the holistic presentation but he said it is vitally important to look at rural isolation as part of that. While social media and websites are great, he wondered whether storyboards, like those in heritage areas could be put up in areas to show what's happening in community services.

Not everyone finds out about what's happening on a laptop, he commented.