Celebrate good times!

3 GoodGymers made their way to help an isolated older person in Southwark.

: Tuesday, 17th of November 2020

Laura, Frances and I met in East Dulwich on a locked-down evening to help Mr K's partner, Ms L, get her house ready for his return from hospital.

It was really nice to have an excuse to get out of the house of an evening. There was quite a lot of furniture to be moved as well, so we could see we were going to get a workout!

We tackled the hardest item first - a three seater sofa to be manoeuvred upstairs and into Ms L's bedroom. Luckily her son was on hand to do a lot of the grunt work! We took it in turns to support/direct. At one point the lodger came out to help, and even the cat made an appearance! It was touch and go, but we succeeded in the end.

The rest of the items were a doddle after that. We shuttled everything upstairs, and soon Ms L was left with a clear area for delivery of a hospital bed.

We were very touched as we headed out and Ms L handed us a box of celebrations each. We said we needed no payment/reward, but were pleased to accept the treats when Ms L insisted.

Report written by Southwark runner

Discuss this report

Kate Jansen

Friday November 20th, 2020 11:07

Thank you so much for doing this, especially during Lockdown.

I was holding my breath waiting to hear how it would go, having heard about the sofa which needed to be moved but not having seen the home!

Well done

We appreciate your help so much, without GoodGym I don't know how we would manage to get some of our patients home :)

Southwark runner

Saturday November 21st, 2020 14:44

No problem, Kate. I hope the report demonstrated how happy we were to assist, and that we all benefitted by being useful in these testing times!

The missing link is probably in the funding. GoodGym should be funded by local councils to provide the service. As you point out, who knows how this kind of service would happen without GoodGym!