The Day Care Centre is open 5 days a week and offers a safe comfortable place for clients to spend time with others. We provide breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea to clients and offer a home delivery of meals also.
Each one of the clients in the Centre gets picked up from home every day and dropped back every evening. They get a four course meal every day at lunchtime. The programme of activities includes arts and crafts, bingo, movement and exercise, yoga, social activities and trips, music, knitting, spiritual and pastoral needs. The daily charge for all of this is just €8. There is also a shopping service available, collection of prescriptions, facilities of a wet room, hairdressing and chiropody.
In addition to the regular clients who use the Centre on a daily basis, there is a Meals on Wheels service in operation that delivers nutritious meals for €6 per day to people in their own homes. The client group is principally made up of over 65 year olds in the Kildare, Nurney and Monasterevin areas. However, the Centre will also accept clients who are under 65 if they have special needs such as Downs Syndrome or other physical or sensory impairments or people who are socially isolated for whatever reason or in need of social and material support.
Most of all we provide a place that is welcoming so that our clients enjoy coming to spend time with their friends instead of being alone at home during the day.
The Day Care Centre was established in 1981 by the Society of St. Vincent De Paul and has been run by a committee ever since.
From recently, the Centre is under the management of the new SVP St. Louis and Zelie Conference which is now clearly separated from the Conference that manages the St. Vincent de Paul visitation work and the Vincent shop in the town. Of course this means that funding activities will also be separated in the future. The Centre and the rooms within it are also available for rent for clubs, businesses, societies or just “one off” functions.
We are funded by a payment from the client themselves (currently €8 per day) , some government grants, fundraising activities and donations from local people.
Our funds go towards the day to day running and upkeep of the centre to ensure it remains in the town for many years to come.
‘The staff are lovely, we have a great laugh, the food is wonderful and there are lots of activities and great days out organised’ – quote from a client.