NEW PALESTINE — Foam heart shapes, glittery stickers and rubber stamps were scattered about the café tables.
Mary Jo Shaw had spent a couple of hours cutting and folding red cards and pink cards to get ready for this day. Now it was time to decorate them.
Shaw and the other women making cards are part of the Helping Hands, one of the United Methodist Women groups at New Palestine United Methodist Church. Each winter, this group devotes one of its meetings to decorating cards that are delivered to several senior care facilities for Valentine’s Day, in hopes that the greetings will show residents they’re remembered and loved.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
“It’s just something to help people — make them happy,” said group member Katsue Gladback.
“It’s just (to say) that we remember them this time of year; especially during the winter months it can feel lonely,” Judi Walsh said as she stuck hearts on at a table with Gladback.
Flat packages of heart stickers, about 30 of them, filled a plastic grocery bag a few tables away. They were ready for Pam Komendo to peel them from their clear plastic sheets and place one on a red or pink card.
The cards are counted out in bundles and delivered to Woodland Terrace in New Palestine, Morristown Manor and Springhurst Health Campus in Greenfield. Komendo knows her mother will receive one of them when the cards are delivered.
The Helping Hands group makes other gestures through the year to help others. Members have packed birthday bags for Hancock County Food Pantry, helping make sure families receiving food there can also receive the ingredients to make a birthday cake. They also help stock food to fill backpacks for local junior high students who might otherwise be hungry over the weekend.
Even when they’re meeting at a restaurant primarily to socialize, they often collect items to help others. That might be diapers for Life Choices Care Center in Greenfield. Or it might be paper towels and toilet paper for Fletcher Place Community Center, an outreach of United Methodist origins in Indianapolis.
They carry out acts that help ensure needs don’t fall through the cracks. Take the valentine cards as an example. Group president Cindy Gray says the facility residents can be a forgotten population. Sometimes it’s hard for family members to visit often, or some people don’t have as many loved ones nearby to come. Helping Hands works to make sure each resident is remembered at Valentine’s Day.
“If it brightens their day … it’s worth all the effort,” Gray said.
