WEDNESDAY was a bright and beautiful day for some elderly residents of Eira Schader Golden Age Home in Trench Town, St Andrew, as a team of nursing professionals from Medical Associates Hospital visited them bearing gifts and treats.

One resident of the home, Milton Johnson, described the initiative as lovely.

“It is a good gesture,” Johnson told the Jamaica Observer.

One female resident, who did not give her name, shared Johnson’s sentiments.

“The nurses came and brought gifts for me and that’s nice. I received some beautiful things,” she said.

Lloyd Ferguson, one of the administrators at the home, thanked the team from Medical Associates for caring and being kind to the residents.

“We here in Trench Town would like them to keep this up. This home, it was some ghetto youths who organised and started it. We started it through some hard times. We appreciate anybody who comes to Trench Town to make a contribution to this home. We appreciate it. Today is a very bright day at the Eira Schader Golden Age Home,” said Ferguson.

Director of nursing at Medical Associates Sharmen Edwards explained that Wednesday’s treat was done in observance of National Nurses’ Week 2025.

She said one of the aims going forward is to find organisations and individuals willing to partner with Medical Associates to make further donations to the facility.

“We don’t want it to just be today because there is a need for continuous support at the facility. They are happy and they expressed their gratitude and they like to see people coming around because they really need the support. Nurses’ Week is celebrated every year in Jamaica, the third week of July.

“The nurses at Medical Associates Hospital usually do a community outreach programme during that week and we have decided this year to do the Eira Schader Golden Age Home in Trench Town,” said Edwards.

“How we came to know about this home is through Orrette Wellington. He usually feeds the elderly in the community like twice a year and I have participated with him before. I decided I would come, have a look at the home, discuss it with my staff and we decided that this will be our outreach programme for this year. We partnered with Food For the Poor and gathered some items along with individual donations from nurses and some of our doctors at the hospital.

“We received household items, personal items, hygienic items, walkers, wheelchairs, bath chairs, diapers and a lot of food items like rice, flour, sugar beans and canned stuff — everything you can think of. We gave a set of supplies to the home and we gave a package to all 14 residents here,” Edwards added.

Wellington, who is one of the founding members of the home, said it started when an old-school dancehall artiste David “Tappa Zukie” Sinclair was on tour in Europe more than 40 years ago and met Eira Schader and her daughter Angela.

“You know when foreigner hear about Trench Town they get excited. He told them that he was from Trench Town and would like them to do something for the community. They came to Trench Town and asked us what we would like them to do. We decided that we wanted a golden age home.

“During those times, it was war, in the 1980s, a lot of youth got killed and a lot of old people were left behind. We formed this home and the people who didn’t have any family were selected to receive help. This was a broken down building, so Eira and Angela came in and when they went back to Europe they sent money to us. They took pictures of Trench Town and went into a park, did a slide show and basically begged people to donate,” Wellington told the Observer.

Wellington said when construction was complete the Schaders told him that people were telling them not to go to Trench Town because they would get robbed and they would be killed but they ignored the negative talk.