Presbyterian Aged Care (PAC) has now been providing care for older people for 75 years. We invited our clients from our retirement villages and those that receive “Home Care” in the area to help us celebrate our diamond jubilee birthday where it all began: Pitt Wood House in Ashfield, Sydney.
A grand, beautiful home that is now heritage listed, it belonged to George Pitt Wood until the 1940s. He left the home to the Presbyterian Church to establish “an aged care home for ladies” as he wished to provide a safe place for his sisters to grow old when he passed away (PAC has now grown to 10 aged care homes, 11 retirement villages, and 6 “Home Care” service districts – just recently a seventh has been added in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney).
The party kicked off with professional singer Tony Hayley who sang classics like “Edelweiss”, “What a Wonderful World, and That’s Amoré!”, which people couldn’t help but sing along to. Just the beginning, the celebrations then kicked on with games that gave a lot of good laughs, food galore, and a dance party. The latter of which resulting in the nicest moshpit in the world (see our Instagram @PresAgedCare).
Then, we found out our beautiful retirement village residents had formed a choir weeks and weeks beforehand and practised as they wanted to give back on the special day! “The Pitts” blew us, and everyone else away and we’re so appreciative of having them with us.
All of our aged care homes also had their own parties within each of their facilities centering around the anniversary on August 31st. Being the end of winter, festive foods, professional entertainment, games and music all provided a nice winter pick-me-up for residents, and all the photos show a lot of good times and laughs were had. The last of the celebrations was a high tea in mid-October (also in Pitt Wood House) where CEO Paul Sadler and other senior managers made speeches and toasts amongst a large host of staff.