Birmingham care home calls for help celebrating resident's 100th birthday

A Birmingham care home's launched an appeal as one of their residents is set to celebrate their 100th birthday.

Lilian's been at Heartlands Care Home in Yardley for around six years and doesn't have any close family.

So staff are trying to make the milestone birthday in February special by asking people to send in birthday cards.

They put out this plea on social media:

"We have a lovely lady who will be turning 100 on 13th February, unfortunately she doesn't have any close family. I am reaching out to see if there is anyone who would be willing/able to send her a card to wish her a happy birthday?

If you could, we would really appreciate it and it would go a long way to making her day a special one 💜 Her name is Lilian, her favourite colour is purple and she loves anything Royal."

Within 24 hours, the post was shared thousands of times and hundreds of people left a comment.

We spoke to Stacey Debney who put out the post on a local Facebook group:

"When I was sitting and ordering things for her birthday, like decorations, I thought it's a shame she'll get around 3 or 4 cards.

"I just put out a little post into the community, because we have received really kind gestures from the community in the past, so perhaps someone would send a card, I thought I could get 50 for her.

"That's what inspired me to do it, the fact that she wouldn't get much and I wanted her to have a really special day.

"I spent my whole day yesterday answering messages to people. It's been really overwhelming.

"A local lady is making Lilian a lovely dress, her favourite colour is purple, she's sent a beautiful design for a dress she's tailoring now, which she can wear on her birthday.

"Another lady has ordered her a tiara so she feels like a Queen for the day.

"We've had loads of offers for cake.

"We've had a local cleaning firm who have been in touch and want to send a present.

"We have had a lot of questions about flowers but unfortunately we can't accept them at the moment due to Covid and infection control, but we are accepting artificial flowers.

"She absolutely loves them, so we're really excited for that.

"We've had many different companies that have offered to do balloons for her to really mark the occasion.

"I've also had contact from a local police officer, who has very kindly ordered a big three-piece jigsaw, which is quite a large one, of the Royal Family, because she loves those.

"We've had contacts from the local doctors, job centre, post office, our local Morrisons have offered to do a buffet for her.

"We've also had contact from local schools.

"It's been really heartwarming, everyone's just really overjoyed.

"It's made us all a bit emotional, we really wanted to make her day special."

If you want to send anything, you can post it to:

Stacey Debney

Heartlands Nursing Home

50, Broadstone Road

Yardley

Birmingham

B26 2BN

Any gifts, cards or letters will be put "in quarantine for the appropriate time before giving them to Lilian".

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