ALZANO LOMBARDO, Italy (AP) – Emotions are rising this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy, near Bergamo, after months of almost total isolation for its residents.
Celestina Comotti, a longtime resident, couldn’t believe it, while a staff member read aloud a Christmas card from a family looking forward to a video call.
“Damn it!” Comotti exclaimed when nursing home staff confirmed that her benefactors – 9-year-old Simon, Marta’s sister and mother Alessia – were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman broke down in tears.
“I’m shaking,” she said, adjusting her glasses.
Despite a gloomy year marked by death and loneliness, the holiday spirit descends on the Zanchi nursing home, one of the first in Italy to close its doors to visitors after a COVID-19 case was confirmed at a nearby hospital on February 23. .
The cheerleaders were the so-called “grandchildren of Santa Claus,” people who responded to a charity’s call to spread joy to nursing home residents, many of whom live far from their families or no longer have family members.
The “Grandchildren of Santa Claus” program is in its third year. Last year, it matched 2,550 “grandchildren” with residents of 91 nursing homes. This year, 5,800 gifts were sent to 228 nursing homes across the country – a spill that is partly a reaction to the devastating number the coronavirus has had on the elderly, including most of Italy’s 70,000 dead. confirmed by COVID-19.
This was the first year of the Zanchi nursing home that participated in the “Santa’s grandchildren” program. The town of Alzano Lombardo, where the house is located, was one of the most affected in the province of Bergamo, where the first cases of internally transmitted coronavirus infections in Italy were discovered and reached the spring growth of the country.
Michela Valle, the house’s activities coordinator, said her goal was not so much to fulfill the wishes of older Italians as holiday gifts, but to “make connections.” The program has associated benefactors with 43 Zanchi residents this season. Valle hopes that one day, when the pandemic subsides substantially, in-person meetings will be able to take place.
Recipients wore Santa hats during virtual tours with their volunteer grandchildren. They also received gifts to unwind during calls. Comotti’s adoptive family sent him a shawl, just as she had asked.
“Blue, like your eyes,” said Maria Giulia Madaschi, the asylum’s director. Comotti laughed happily as the workers wrapped the shawl around her.
Tami “Mario” Palmiro was delighted with the baseball cap endowed with the name of the professional football team from Atalanta Serie A in Bergamo, causing a stadium joy at the age of 81, before he also broke down in tears.
Palmiro arrived at the nursing home in August, undergoing more transitions than usual due to virus control procedures that strictly limit family visits, Madaschi said.
One of the “grandchildren”, Ilaria Sacco, said she signed up because she failed to travel home to California, Italy for Christmas this year and wanted to feel connected. Another, Caterina Damiano, explained that she lost both grandparents this year “but I still want to be a grandson”.
Madaschi said she often woke up excited to tears through interactions because “grandchildren” and “grandparents” found a common ground. Many are already making connections, sometimes with real relatives who facilitate contact with the new “grandchildren”.
“Guests were able to perceive the spirit of Christmas, the joy of the holiday – to be able to develop as a gift, an event so normal in this abnormal period in which we live,” she said. “It was a wonderful experience. To be repeated. “
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Barry reported from Milan. Charlene Pele contributed from Alzano Lombardo, and Alberto Pellaschiar contributed from Rome.
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