Card campaign helps bring the holidays home
Students at Gulf Elementary School are helping spread holiday cheer this year with nearly 600 handmade cards that will be delivered to assisted living and nursing homes in Cape Coral.
The students helped Cape Coral resident Tom Dolan come closer to reaching his goal of delivering 1,100 Christmas cards this year. As of Tuesday afternoon he had reached almost 900 cards.
“We are very proud of these kids,” he said.
The idea struck Dolan in 2020 when friends lost loved ones in assisted living facilities due to COVID, or health problems. He realized that most folks get little, or no mail at these facilities.
Dolan began sending cards to the facilities and people began donating cards to him with cheerful greetings.
Monica Baker, a STEM teacher at Gulf Elementary School, went looking at the Nextdoor app, as she was looking for a way to give back, when she saw Dolan’s thread. After learning about the project, Baker thought she could help in a bigger way.
Dolan is now affectionately known as Mr. Christmas by Baker. Sixteen teachers at Gulf Elementary School, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade, decided to join in on the project.
“When our children knew we were giving back to the community and here in Cape Coral, our kids wanted to do more than one and make sure they were beautiful and their handwriting was great,” Baker said. “It was for a really great cause.”
The students were given a premade template, so they could sit down and design and create their card. The cards were designed with glitter, some added photographs, while many others drew pictures.
“My older students in fourth and fifth grade told all about themselves,” Baker said, adding that no two cards were identical.
The project was great, as the students tackled a need, while learning about empathy, in addition to practicing penmanship and writing skills.
“The kids loved the idea that someone was going to be excited to read the card,” she said. “The kids enjoyed it so much.”
With Gulf Elementary School students from all over the world, teachers encouraged them to write in their native language if they so desired. Baker said they were able to provide 30 cards written in Spanish, which accommodated Spanish-language recipients.
“We were able to address that need,” Baker said, adding that some students also wrote in Russian.
A lot of the cards were also personally addressed inside and out, which made it more special for the recipient.
“Hopefully they will know that all the cards were written and took time. We were thinking about them,” she said.
With such positive feedback from the students, Baker said she can see them creating cards a couple times a year each year.
“The benefits are just unbelievable for everyone involved,” she said.
In addition to Gulf Elementary School, John Ball’s sixth grade class at Oasis Middle School created almost 100 cards and small Christmas gifts for residents at Woodlands Assisted Living Facility in Cape Coral, which will be delivered in time for Christmas.
Ball said he got involved with the project after he was contacted by Dolan.
“He asked me to bring joy to the residents of The Woodlands by having my students and families write holiday cards. This is really something that I enjoy doing because it is a wonderful thing to put a smile on someone’s face and at the same time, I can use this as an opportunity to teach my students about kindness and compassion,” he said. “I think it is important that we remember our older populations, especially during the holiday season. I was able to do this for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Ball said he looks forward to sending more greeting cards in the future.
Dolan said they are still seeking additional cards and writers who would like to send some holiday cheer. In addition, he said they are also looking for 2023 calendars for the residents, as many of them enjoy looking at the photos on the calendar, as well as large print word search books and coloring books.
“We’d love more volunteer card writers, school groups, church organizations, Boy Scouts and Girl Scout participation,” he said. “Populations in our nursing homes and assisted living facilities increase yearly. The more cards, coloring books, and small gifts we can deliver mean so much to so many.”
For more information, email Dolan at tom_dolan38@hotmail.com, or call 239-284-5580.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com