Nursing home parades through town in urgent plea for volunteers

A Danish nursing home has taken an unusual approach to recruiting volunteers, parading residents and staff through the streets of Kerteminde with banners, flags, and singing in an appeal for new helpers, Danish broadcaster DR reports.

The procession from the nursing home Fjordly stopped outside a local Spar supermarket, where residents in wheelchairs held signs while staff and relatives carried banners, hoping to catch the attention of potential volunteers.

Fjordly’s support association, Fjordlys Venner, is at risk of closing by the new year if new volunteers do not step forward, outgoing chairperson Birgit Helbo said. The current volunteers are all around 80 years old, she said, and have run out of energy. “We are all around 80, and yes, sometimes we are older than the people we care for. So there is really a need for new ones,” Helbo told DR. She has been a volunteer for 22 years.

“You think you are doing something for others. You are, but you also do a lot for yourself. It is so life-giving. I just think there is not much prestige in being a volunteer at a nursing home,” she said.

Resident Ellen Hansen, 90, who has lived at Fjordly for four years, said the volunteers are essential. “We need them. If Fjordlys Venner and the Wednesday club do not come, nothing happens, and there are some here who otherwise never get out,” she said. Hansen worked as a home helper in the municipality for 38 years.

Nursing home manager Rikke Berg Petersen described the support association as vital. “They are our lifeline, we can safely say that. They create so much life — come and hold social events, drink coffee, go for walks with the residents. We would be so sorry to lose that because we cannot recruit volunteers,” she said.

The unconventional appeal appears to be yielding results. Jane Rasmussen, who encountered the procession outside the supermarket, said she had never heard of the support association but would consider joining. “I could definitely be part of it. Just go in and inject some energy into the nursing home. I think they would love that,” she said.

Tags: denmark, nursing home, volunteer recruitment