‘Somebody’s thinking of you’
Care facility residents, many who haven’t visited family in months, get valentines from community
Valentine’s Day usually is a time to celebrate relationships.
This year however, due to COVID-19, many people vulnerable to the virus will spend the day alone, or with care staff.
However, at Grace Point Place, a memory and dementia care facility in Oak Lawn, there will be a special sort of celebration. It will be safe, but it will be big.
Shannon Dahlman, community relations director for Grace Point Place, said the facility has been asking members of the community to send in Valentine’s Day notes to residents and the community has taken up the cause.
“We thought it would be great with residents not being able to see their families,” Dahlman said. “We thought the public could send in a Valentine’s Day card for them just so they could have that mail, so they know they’re being thought of through the time of COVID.”
The facility is home to 52 people, many of whom may not have seen their families for months. Normally, Valentine’s Day is a big visiting day for residents.
“It probably would be a social visit with family, cookies and treats but with our visiting restrictions that’s not happening at this time,” Dahlman said.
She said Grace Point Place has been working hard to offer replacement activities amid the pandemic, and this isn’t the first time the staff has had to create an alternative route to social visits. So far, she said, their efforts have been effective.
“In the midst of all of it I believe they’re doing well,” Dahlman said of her residents. “We’re doing our best to keep them in contact with the outside world via video
visits with family and probably there’s a little bit more attention on individual activity to keep them engaged and active.”
So, to replace the real-life interactions that come with Valentine’s Day, the Grace Point residents this year also are writing cards.
“In return our residents are making Valentine’s Day cards for our first responders,” Dahlman explained.
She said she wanted to engage the residents and activities like writing letters help stimulate the brain. Plus, sending out notes of appreciation just feels good.
“I think they’re really excited to show their appreciation to the first responders. That has been the most delightful event of the whole thing,” Dahlman said.
Still, she said it’s not clear when life might go back to normal. Last week residents got their second round of vaccines.
“We’re just waiting for some direction from the Illinois Department of Health,” she said.
Meanwhile, a couple of miles away, students at Eisenhower High School are also busy writing letters to residents of a care facility in Blue Island.
Karen Burmeister, cosponsor of the National Honors Society program at Eisenhower, said the idea was to combine volunteer hours for the program and a desire to brighten the lives of their older neighbors.
“I was thinking normally for the NHS there’s a big requirement to do service hours, and with everything going on we knew there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to do things at the school,” Burmeister said.
She said the idea actually came from a student who works at Prairie Green at Fay’s Point, a Blue Island care facility, and suggested it might be nice to write Valentine’s Day cards for seniors.
“I said that’s perfect, let’s do that,” she said.
About 30 NHS members signed up, some writing two letters to different seniors.
“I’m hoping they like it,” she said. The letters, she said, are very warm.
“A lot of them said ‘dear my new best friend’ or ‘dear friend’ — it was really nice, and very thoughtful,” Burmeister said. “I was very proud of them. They did a nice job.”
NHS faculty sponsor Sue Morgan agreed and said the cards are very sweet.
“One student said we have a large Hispanic population in Blue Island and so should we write some in Spanish, and I said, ‘What a great idea,’” Morgan said.
Morgan said one suggestion for the students was to tell the residents about themselves, so most of the notes are just that — the news of the lives of high school honor students.
Burmeister said she hopes this will start a new tradition that will continue even after the pandemic has ended.
“It gives kids an opportunity to write and it makes kids think about (people) who maybe don’t have a lot of visitors and who are maybe lonely,” she said.
The kids were also invited to send along their email or address if they felt comfortable doing so, so there is the potential for new pen pals.