Spread the Love

In January Izzy approached me about an idea that had been brewing.  She actually created a powerpoint presentation and showed it to me.  Her project was called "Spread the Love".  She wanted her entire 6th grade class to create Valentine's Day cards to be sent to someone who needed a bit more love during the holiday.  Originally she wanted to adopted a floor in the children's hospital but was informed that, due to the pandemic, the hospital was only accepting monetary gifts.  She was a bit bummed but didn't want to give up on her idea.  We brainstormed about other groups that might enjoy being recipients of this project.  Izzy settled on the idea of adopting a retirement community / nursing home.  The bigger question now was which one.  We came up with randomly picking a state/city, choosing the nursing home Grandma Lois lived in, or one locally.  While working with her teacher on her idea, three other classmates stepped up to help out.  One of them has grandparents who are living in such a community in New Hampshire.  We then reached out to them who were ecstatic about partnering with the 6th grade class.  As a mother, it was so wonderful to see my daughter dream up an idea and watch it come to fruition.  

This of course would not have been possible without Izzy's home room teacher who was her mentor, Ms. Gallagher.  She was Izzy's 4th grade teacher and moved to 6th grade just this year.  When Izzy learned that Ms. Gallagher was going to be her teacher again, even the pandemic couldn't put a damper on this.  Ms. Gallagher helped Izzy by creating time for her to present her project to the class.  She allowed Izzy and the three other classmates to stay inside during recess to created Valentine's Day card goodie bags that each student used fabricate their cards.  (A shout out to Victoria who also helped stuff 80 goodie bags at home for Izzy.)  And she helped collect cards from cohort B as these are the days Izzy is not in school in person.

On the day of Valentine Card pick, we counted at least 70 cards had been made.  Some of them were quite superb and thoughtful.  We went through and read every single one at home.  Some had riddles.  Some had hand made word searches.  A few were 3D or had pockets with hidden goodies inside.  Some told a story while others bordered on being pen pal letters.

Carla, the activities director at Harvest Hills, was such a delight to work with on this project.  I was afraid that Izzy would receive the same push back that she did from Children's Hospital given the ongoing pandemic.  However Carla was more than thrilled to help.  What we learned was that Izzy's classmate's grandparents live in the adjoining retirement community, The Woodlands.  Harvest Hills is the assisted living / nursing home.  Carla wanted to know if the cards should be delivered to the residents at The Woodlands.  I posed this question to Izzy.  Ultimately she decided to stay with Harvest Hills as she recognized the difference between the two locations after visiting Grandma Lois several times when back in Nebraska and felt the cards would "spread the love" more in this location.  Carla even sent back a few pictures of residents who received the Valentine's Day cards.  I'm so proud of the impact Izzy has made.