Larchwood Care

The Proclaimers’ hit song ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)’ has been used as inspiration by a Manchester care home to help keep its residents fit and healthy.

Atherton-based Chanters Care Home, which provides specialist elderly and dementia care, as well as looking after people with learning disabilities, is organising a challenge for residents to complete a total of 500 laps of the grounds.

The event will take place throughout July and to mark the start of the Commonwealth Games at the end of the month (July 28), there will medals for those who take part.

Residents at the home, on Tyldesley Old Road, are being encouraged to each complete as many laps as they can.

Activities manager Lyndsey McBride said: “The idea was inspired by the Proclaimers’ song ‘I’m Gonna Be’, which includes the chorus – ‘But I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more’.

“Obviously, that sort of distance is not feasible for our residents, so we have used a bit of poetic licence and have set a target of 500 laps of our grounds.”

Home manager Anne Hargreaves said: “Our activities team is continually looking for different ways of encouraging our residents to remain active and get lots of fresh air.

“Setting a goal of completing 500 circuits of our grounds is a great way of encouraging those living at Chanters to take part in some exercise that they can enjoy at their own pace.”

The residents’ efforts will be sponsored to help bring in money for the home’s entertainment fund with each lap being a total of about 200 metres.

In the past the home, in its quest to help keep residents fit and active, hired a rowing machine, where the goal was for participants to row the equivalent of the English Channel.

Chanters Care Home is rated as overall good by the industry regulator, the Care Quality Commission, which assesses standards including safety, effectiveness, management, responsiveness, and care.

It features 40 ensuite rooms, a wide-ranging activities programme, which reflects the needs, interests and wishes of people living at the home, and an extensive well-tended garden that can be enjoyed by residents and their families.

To support the care home’s fundraising, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/care-home-residents-to-do-500-laps?member=20344521

ENDS

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CONTACT: Joss Havakin on 01325 363436

Notes to editors:

Larchwood Care has an extensive range of care homes, with an excellent reputation, in England, Scotland and South Wales.

All of the facilities are set up to support a comfortable lifestyle while making the most of a skilled care team with an approach that is homely and charming, while also being modern and efficient.

Larchwood Care Homes is managed by Healthcare Management Solutions, one of the leading providers of care in the UK.

https://www.larchwoodcare.co.uk/