‘Support us’ plea to businesses

Shaw Parish Council meeting
A WELL-BEING service is appealing to Shaw residents and businesses to support it in the community.

The Laurel Bank Day Centre in Kershaw Street opened in 2002 and provides care for older people in modern surroundings and also supports service users to live as independently as possible.

Well-being officers Jean Murphy and Melanie Bell have been working hard to remove the stigma attached to people using such services by opening it up to the community and asking for wider support in Shaw.

Jean said: “We have struggled with the businesses in Shaw. We would like them to get behind us for our Christmas fair on December 3. When we’ve had an event we found that the majority of businesses in Shaw have not been very helpful, with the exception of Warburtons and Park Cake Bakeries, who have been wonderful.

“We’re not asking for funds, we just want support. In some places they tried to charge us for putting an event poster in a shop windows.”

The officers want the service users to get involved with all kinds of projects in the community.

Jean said that they had done some great community work with Oldham College and schools — in particular Crompton Primary, which had been excellent. She added: “We keep hearing we need to build neighbourhoods and communities — we’ve been doing that for nearly 10 years.

“We are a preventative service. When people come to the centre the stigma is that you are going there and the next step is death. But we are so far ahead — we were the first service to invite silver surfers, thanks to Oldham College.”

Staff want to increase user numbers — currently averaging 52 a week — by promoting the service positively and becoming an integral part of the community. Users raised over £1,000 for Sports Relief by walking a community mile at a venue provided by Oldham Community Leisure.