During the 2022 holiday season, Darem decided to focus on one of our most vulnerable populations: older adults.
What is a vulnerable population? Groups at higher risk for poor health outcomes, increased morbidity (suffering from a disease), and mortality. These result from the barriers they encounter due to social, economic, racial, environmental factors, or other limitations.
The most vulnerable populations in healthcare are:
- Children
- Older Adults
- Chronically ill individuals or people with disabilities
- People experiencing poverty or homelessness
- Racial, social and ethnic minorities
- People who are uninsured
Many of the individuals we served this season are not only elderly but also fall under “other” vulnerable categories (chronically ill, disabled, low-income, etc.) making them even more at risk for worsen health outcomes. This year we wanted to take the opportunity to spread joy and bring smiles to these vulnerable individuals who are many times forgotten.
On Dec 12th, we partnered again with Bringing Happiness Foundation to bring holiday cheer to 250 senior residents at Christian City Community in Union City, GA. Christian City is a community that serves children, youth and seniors. Their programs include residential programs for at risk children, safe place locations for children and youth in crisis, foster care, transitional program, senior community, assisted living and rehabilitation facilities. To learn more about their work, visit www.christiancity.org
Our small contribution gifted each senior with a holiday mug, a pair of gloves and a handwritten holiday card.
For our second event of the season, we served at Buford Senior Center in Buford, GA participating in their holiday celebration. On Dec 22nd our volunteers dressed in holiday attire to spend some quality time with 55 seniors, enjoying holiday activities and gifting them presents. We gifted each senior a pair of winter gloves and a holiday card written by kids in our community.
We work with Buford Senior Center, part of Gwinnett County OneStop program on a regular basis bringing the seniors talks and workshops on relevant health topics for their population. Starting January 2023, we will be launching University of Health at their facility to continue our health conversations and to empower the seniors to take charge of their health.
