Mount Barker High School, St Mark’s Lutheran School and Welly Road Early Learning Centre have had long relationships with the aged care home while COVID-19 precautions prompted Mount Barker South Primary School and Littlehampton Primary School to start the connection.

Residents gathered for a morning tea where the group read the letters, shared the jokes and showed the artworks that were all sent in.

This led residents to share their memories of school days – with resident Shirley Liebelt talking about her time at one of the schools that had sent some goodies, Littlehampton Primary.

Shirley personally replied with a letter to the students at her old school.

The group then sent back dolly chains with messages and responded to individual letters from children.

Shirley said she felt ‘so happy’ to receive messages from students.

“It was nice to know we were not forgotten by our community,” said Shirley.

“The messages the young students sent were lovely – we sent back our thanks for their thoughts with help from the lifestyle team.

“We are so happy to be living where we are.”

Fellow Sash Ferguson resident Pauline Sachse said she was very proud of the children to be interested in ‘us oldies’ and knew that there would be better days ahead.