‘Lifeline’ Daffodil Club faces closure due to lack of funds
A Community Centre for the elderly has six months left if funding is not made available from Glasgow City Council.
The Daffodil Club in Easterhouse provides food and leisure activities to around 70 elderly people. The club supplies transportation for residents, picking them up from all over the north-east for a day at the Centre.
Activities include exercise classes, weekly haircuts and annual trips to Blackpool. Residents have made friends at this club and during the pandemic they regularly phoned to keep each other company.
Lynda O’Neil is the project manager and described just how vital services like these are.
“It’s a lifeline. We get so many referrals that we could actually double the amount of people that we’ve got but we’ve just not got the capacity to do it or the funding.”
“They say there is nowhere else to go and the older people that we actually have can’t get out the house without support, so that’s why we need to pick them up.”
Community Centres like this one provide a warm, social place for pensioners to meet friends, get out the house and have something to look forward to in the week.
Lynda O’Neil has worked at the Daffodil Club for 29 years so knows exactly the impact these centers have.
She added: “People don’t realise how much money we are actually saving them. When we get people they tend not to go into hospitals for long term stays and even if they do have to go into hospital they get released quicker because they know they’ve got somewhere to go when they get released. A lot of ours don’t have home helps because they don’t need them four times a day because they’re here and getting fed.”
Clubs like these provide elderly with food and warmth but they also supply companionship and community to those who need it most.
This centre is proactively helping an ageing population and if funds from charities and Glasgow City Council fall through, so will it.
