ALZANO LOMBARDO, Italy (AP) – Emotions are running high this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy near Bergamo, after months of near-total isolation from residents.
Celestina Comotti, who had lived for years, didn’t believe when an employee read a Christmas greeting from a family who looked at her expectantly during a video call.
“Damn!” Comotti exclaimed as nursing home staff confirmed that her benefactors – 9-year-old Simon, his sister Marta and mother Alessia – were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman dissolved in tears.
“I’m shaking,” she said, adjusting her glasses.
Despite a grim year marked by death and loneliness, the holiday spirit descends on nursing home Zanchi, one of the first in Italy to close its doors to visitors after a COVID-19 case was confirmed at the nearby hospital on Feb. 23.
The bearers of glad tidings were the so-called “Santa’s grandchildren,” people who responded to a charity’s call to cheer up elderly nursing home residents, many of whom live far from their families or have no relatives.
The “Grandchildren of Santa Claus” program is in its third year. Last year it had 2,550 “grandchildren” with residents of 91 nursing homes. This year, 5,800 gifts were sent to 228 nursing homes across the country – a deluge that is in part a response to the devastating toll the coronavirus has had on the elderly, including the majority of the 70,000 deaths from COVID-19 in Italy. .
This was the first year of the nursing home Zanchi participating in the “Santa’s grandchildren” program. The town of Alzano Lombardo, where the house is located, was one of the hardest hit in Bergamo province, where the first domestically transmitted cases of coronavirus infections in Italy were discovered and triggered the country’s deadly spring wave.
Michela Valle, the home’s activity coordinator, said her goal was not so much to fulfill elderly Italians’ wishes for holiday gifts, but to “ forge bonds. ” This season, the program linked donors to 43 Zanchi residents. Valle hopes that one day when the pandemic abates significantly, face-to-face meetings can take place.
The recipients wore Santa hats during the virtual visits with their volunteer grandchildren. They were also given presents to unwrap during the phone calls. Comotti’s adoptive family sent her a scarf, just as she requested.
“Blue, just like your eyes,” said nursing home director Maria Giulia Madaschi. Comotti laughed happily as the workers wrapped the scarf around her.
Tami “Mario” Palmiro was delighted with his baseball cap bearing the name of Bergamo’s Atalanta Serie A professional football team, provoking stadium cheer from the 81-year-old before he too burst into tears.
Palmiro arrived at the nursing home in August and underwent a transition that was more difficult than usual due to virus-control procedures that strictly limit family visits, Madaschi said.
One of the “ grandchildren, ” Ilaria Sacco, said she signed up because she couldn’t travel home to Italy from California for Christmas this year and wanted to feel connected. Another, Caterina Damiano, explained that she lost both her grandparents this year “but I still want to be a grandchild.”
Madaschi said she was often moved to tears by the interactions, as the “nipoti” and “nonni” found common ground. Many are already creating bonds, sometimes with real family members who facilitate contact with the new ‘nipoti’.
“The guests could perceive the Christmas spirit, the joy of the holidays – to unwrap and give as a present, such a normal occurrence in this abnormal period we live in,” she said. “It was a great experience. To repeat. “
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Barry reported from Milan. Charlene Pele contributed from Alzano Lombardo and Alberto Pellaschiar contributed from Rome.
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