Residents living in IRT Retirement Villages across Macarthur, Liverpool, Fairfield, St George and Sutherland will receive a special Father's Day gift this year.
Greenacres Disability Service employees were volunteering with IRT Facilities Management employees, prior to current COVID-19 restrictions, to learn gardening and land care skills including garden design and planting.
With restrictions in place, and being on site at IRT no longer possible, the Greenacres and IRT team decided to work together to make it easier for residents to keep track of their keys.
The Greenacres team used their skills to create 700 hanging frames with key hooks as a Father's Day surprise for IRT residents.
IRT Group chief executive Patrick Reid offered his heartfelt thanks to Greenacres for their generous and thoughtful gift to village residents.
"It's been a while now since the Greenacres gardeners have been able come to IRT sites and work their magic on our gardens and they should know that they are dearly missed by us and the residents," Mr Reid said.
"The Greenacres gardeners have such warm personalities and our residents find a lot of joy in watching them work and having a chat while they do.
"We hope to welcome back our Greenacres friends as soon as it is safe to do so."
IRT employees transformed fence palings into frames and sent the raw frames to the Greenacres team to apply a double varnish and attach key hooks and hanging materials.
Over 700 gift bags were also decorated with hand drawn flowers, rainbows and hearts by Greenacres supported employees.
Bunnings Bellambi staff supported the project by supplying $5000 worth of materials.
Greenacres chief executive Chris Christodoulou said, while at one stage it looked like the project wouldn't go ahead due to the current COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, everyone worked together to get the job done.
"As an essential service, Greenacres Industries has remained open during the current lock down but understandably many of our supported employees are choosing to stay at home," he said.
"To get this special project finished in time for Father's Day, the supported employees who are here worked extra hard and even staff from other areas of the organisation picked up a paint brush and pitched in.
"I think overall there was a lot of enthusiasm for the project as we are aware that many IRT residents will not be able to see family due to the lockdown restrictions and we hope this unexpected surprise will bring some joy on Father's Day."
