Golden citizens are treated with holiday cheer thanks to LIFE

More than 100 golden citizens across Belize City were at Swift Hall today and received some holiday cheer. The organisation, Living Independently in Full Existence, known by its acronym, LIFE, laid out an entire program of food, presents and performances in the Saint Martin’s area. Sister Carlette Gentle is the organisation’s executive director and she spoke to Love News today. 

Carlette Gentle, S.C.N, Executive Director, LIFE: “We’re out in full force. We have 106 seniors that we try to cater to so right now we’re having our annual Christmas party. The past couple years we were delivering stuff in the truck because we couldn’t  gather but now they’re out celebrating with each other. You know what it’s really needed and Lisa added another level of depression when you look at our seniors. So today if you look around just the basic smiles just from seeing each other, coming out and being with each other it’s really needed because some of our seniors were really depressed and so just the extra smile, the laughter, the company that’s needed you know we’re having that here today.”

The children from St. Martin de Porres Parish also entertained the guests for the luncheon today. Gentle says that changing the lives of our golden citizens is one of the driving forces behind this work.

Carlette Gentle, S.C.N, Executive Director, LIFE: “We’ll have children from St.Martin’s School coming over to do some presentations and in the background that’s live music you’re hearing. We have people coming out to share their talents with our seniors and we have about a half hour to an hour of presentation that they could expect. They’re getting their full rice and beans, salad, ham, everything. My mom and I have been cooking in the kitchen for a while so they’ll also get their black cake, their white cake, apples, you know what we tried to find lemonade and we couldn’t find lemonade so we had to end up with soda and besides that they’ll get a hamper and we could not do this without the donors that have been generously giving us some stuff. Actually Digi is out here with us. They provided some funds for the meal itself to cook that so we’re very thankful to them but I don’t want to list names because I’m going to miss somebody but there are so many different companies that help us to make the hampers for the seniors and that hamper really it’s stuff that they could use at home so it’s rice, it’s beans, the flour, hygiene stuff as well so toilet paper, soap, Clorox but it’s a fully hamper and then also we decided that we’re going to add a chicken this year too so they could make a full meal.”

Reporter: What inspires this work ? 

Carlette Gentle, S.C.N, Executive Director, LIFE: “The heart. That’s all I can say because I’m not doing it for the money. We can also just look at our senior’s smiles on their face and that gives me motivation. Sometimes I ask myself when finance is hard you know why am I doing this but when you see the smiles, and you see how much they love what you’re doing it really motivates me to want to do more.”