CVAS: Let’s ‘Sing Out Loud Together’

CLARENCE Valley Anglican School Year 5/6 students recount 'buddy' visits to Whiddon House aged care home.

Eli Butcher and Maddy Howell chat with their buddy Doris. Picture: Contributed

PACK your instruments and your vocal cords because CVAS Stage 3 has a story for you. We all need to click our fingers and stamp our feet so that we can sing out loud together!

Stage 3 has been lucky enough to visit the Whiddon House aged care home in Grafton each week since term one as part of the 'Sing Out Loud Together' program. In this amazing program we have been able to communicate with many of the elderly people and sing songs with them such as, 'Daisy, Daisy', 'You Are My Sunshine' and 'The Road To Gundagai'.

During the first week of visiting the aged care home, the whole of stage three were separated into groups and allocated a buddy. The groups were able to talk to their buddies and learn interesting things about their lives. Some of our buddies have amazing backgrounds. Ava's buddy, Betty was a psychologist during World War 2, Inneka and Lachlan's buddy, Laurie was a famous camp drafter and has been in the hall of fame three times in a row. He is now 87-years-old and still "happy as Larry".

Visiting Whiddon House always puts a smile on our buddies faces, as for some of them we are they only people who visit them.

There are so many great things about visiting Whiddon each week. We learn so many great facts from our buddies and learning about their lives when they were younger has been really interesting. We have also learnt many new old-time songs, which has been loads of fun. And let's not forget the wonderful Maestro Giri and Jonnali who have taught us new songs and actions. Giri is an amazing accordion player and Jonnali plays the ukulele. Our experience would not been the same without them.

The end of term one concluded with a crazy concert where we were able to dress up in many crazy outfits. We sang all the songs we have learnt and even got to finish off the day with some delicious icy poles.

Our experiences at Whiddon have been great and it is always rewarding to see our buddies smiling. We will certainly miss them when the program finishes at the end of the term.

Originally published as CVAS: Let’s ‘Sing Out Loud Together’