Resthaven residents Linda and Trevor Gorham are among those who have pitched in to help sort the orders for fellow residents.
Cambridge Resthaven’s lockdown shopping for residents’ experience is unleashing a raft of positive outcomes for both parties.
Bulk shopping for residents has become the new norm at the complex’s retirement village. The start of lockdown last month saw a staff team rustled up to shop regularly for around 100 people – making shopping days a big affair.
Village manager turned ‘professional shopper’ Joanne Sutherland said the move, which was proving popular with both residents and their families, minimised the number of outside people doing deliveries into the village and “keeps residents safer in their bubble”.
She gave Cambridge New World a big tick for the “awesome job” they were doing with the ordering process.
Other team members include Resthaven’s project and sales manager Sandy Bennett, and maintenance team leader Shane Milne.
Joanne said shopping lists provided by residents are collated and emailed to the supermarket by Sandy as one big order.
“It’s usually three or four trolleys fully loaded up, which Shane and I collect from New World in the village van, bringing it back to our shopping HQ in the village centre,” she said.
“A few of our residents help on the ‘production line’ to re-pack the groceries into boxes that we then deliver to the residents. We also do orders for the residents of the resthome.”
Only one person’s order has been lost, said Joanne, due to a “comedy of errors” that had seen it only temporarily misplaced.
“It all worked out fine in the end,” she said. “With lockdown we are all in this together. Shopping days create a bit of excitement, and it makes our day to see the residents’ happy faces when they get their deliveries.”
Sandy, who has always quite fancied herself as a ‘professional shopper’ it seems, said: “I had pictured clothes and furniture, not grocery shopping!”
