STAFF, residents, relatives from a Lymm care home and the wider community came together on to create a piece of art work to help raise awareness of dementia.

Normally when an arts and crafts session is embarked on, it is very rarely about the finished item, but the experience of the creativity.

However, this latest collaborative project was planned very much with an end piece in mind.

To recognise National Dementia Week it was decided that a statement piece of art centred around the Forget Me Not flower, a symbol for Dementia Awareness, would be created at Cheshire Grange Home in Booth's Hill Road.

Residents across all the communities were able to contribute, taking the project to residents in their rooms made it totally inclusive, staff helped too as well as Duke of Edinburgh volunteers.

An appeal was sent out to the wider community in Lymm and everyone at Cheshire Grange can't thank all those who crocheted flowers for us enough, those not used in the project are being made into broaches to raise funds for The Alzheimer's Society.

The symbolism on display in the piece of the unfinished flowers in the Forget Me Not panels 'incomplete' is showing the dementia journey, the petals might fade and fall but the flower is still beautiful.

General manager, Dawn Holsgrove-Smith said: “I’m very proud to have this piece of work on display along with the message it conveys, it has become a real talking point for residents, staff and visitors to the home.”

Jo Eland, activity coordinator, added: “We just want to say a big thank you to everyone that contributed to this project, we started out with a general idea, but never thought we’d get so much input and that the finished piece would be so poignant.”

Cheshire Grange is run by Barchester Healthcare, one of the UK’s largest care providers, which is committed to delivering high-quality care across its care homes and hospitals Cheshire Grange provides nursing care, residential care, respite care.