Stories Care at Christmas
I
hadn’t really known what to expect when we first opened the doors of our Lodge – Ashfield House in Burtonupon-Trent – to 30 young people who had been invited to spend Christmas lunch with us because they had left care and were living alone. But I realised the importance of that gesture within a couple of hours. It was around the time when all 30 of those young people, plus their carers, were raising their voices and singing along to Christmas carols seemingly without a care in the world. This is not how life is for them the other 364 days of the year. Nor is it how they would usually spend Christmas. In fact, for one young man (we’ll call him Trevor), that lunch was the first time he had ever received a Christmas card. Not that he opened it to find out what it was all about. Instead, after carefully tearing off the top corner of the envelope to have a tiny peek inside, he tucked it into the pocket of his coat. ‘I’m going to save it for Christmas Day,’ he told me. ‘It’s the only one I’m going to get this year.’ That was three years ago, and it was when I first understood the difference a Christmas lunch would make to the lives of children who had previously been in care. And it was when I truly understood the meaning of the charity we pledge to undertake when joining the Freemasons. There are plenty of other examples, such as the two sisters who had been sold into prostitution by their own parents and only saw each other when they came to our lunches. Or the young man who walked in shyly and silently with his carer and tried to hide in a room full of people. One hour later, he was singing along to The 12 Days of Christmas and his carer was in tears. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him speak,’ she said. Then there was the young man who walked for hours through the snow when his train was cancelled. He finally arrived three hours late, but was determined not to miss out.
COMFORT A N D J OY
Derbyshire Freemason Malcolm Prentice looks back at how he and fellow Derbyshire members and Provincial office staff have been making a difference to the lives of local young people in need
Thanks to the kindness of a team of volunteers, these young people realise that someone cares about them
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