• Eighth grader gives handwritten notes to Meals on Wheels seniors,
Like so many of his classmates at St. Louise de Marillace Catholic School, Patrick Weldon found himself with time to fill last June when COVID-19 put the kibosh on traditional summer activities.
In a normal year, the 14-year-old would have spent many hours a week practicing and playing travel basketball. When that was canceled, he decided to fill the void by volunteering.
Community service is an integral part of a Catholic education, and Patrick — an honor student who is also on the school’s technology team and student government secretary — likes to keep busy.
He ended up at Meals on Wheels, where each Friday he helped a 90year-old neighbor, Bob Margoni, deliver 20 meals to homebound seniors facing hunger and social isolation. His mother, Alexis, ended up volunteering, too, as the pair’s driver.
It didn’t take long for the teenager to notice he and Bob often were the only people his elderly neighbors saw each week. And that made him sad. So he started including handwritten cards with each of the lunches.
“I figured it would remind them they were still being thought of over the weekend,” he says. The gesture worked. Many of his recipients, he said, ended up displaying the cheerful notes in their homes.
Patrick felt emotionally lifted, too. So much so that when classes resumed last fall at the Upper St. Clair school, the eighth grader decided to keep going.
Students produce a lot of artwork during art classes at school, and much of it is discarded after being graded. Instead, Patrick thought, his classmates could brighten the lives of others made lonely by COVID-19 by donating their works to nursing home residents, local seniors and hospital patients.
Principal Kenneth Klase agreed it was a good idea, and art teacher Susan Wagner did, too. Before long, Patrick’s “Art for Heart” program was sending dozens of cards and all kinds of other artwork to local facilities. They started with Catholic-based organizations and programs before branching out to hospitals, local monasteries and Sisters of St. Joseph, a convent in Baden, Beaver County.
With each holiday, the program grew. The 500 cards Patrick and his classmates delivered at
Thanksgiving grew to 700 at Christmas to more than 3,000 in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day — enough to give not only every patient at Mercy Hospital a card wishing them well but also to patients at six other hospitals.
And it wasn’t just the students who were doing the writing and drawing.
“We even had grandparents participating,” Mr. Klase said. “It turned into a big family project.”
The principal was so impressed with Patrick’s outreach that he nominated the Carroll Township teen for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. And then in February, the young man found out he’d been named one of two of Pennsylvania’s top youth volunteers of 2021. The other, 16-year-old Kate Devries of Mechanicsburg, is a junior at Cumberland Valley High School, Cumberland County. The award came with a $2,500 college scholarship. Patrick had no clue about the award until a box showed up on his front porch containing a letter and a “really big” medal.
The program was created in 1995 by Prudential and the National Association of SecondarySchool Principals to honor middle and high school students for outstanding service to others at the local, state and national level. Since its inception, it has recognized more than 140,000 young people who’ve made a difference in their communities.
“He is well above his age and just a true ambassador for St. Louise,” Mr. Klase said.
Especially with visitors being prohibited during COVID-19, “It’s a wonderful way to brighten up someone’s day,” agreed Kylee Landman, a nursing patient care technician at Jefferson Hospital. She recalls a stroke patient who was so struck reading one of the students’ cards that it brought tears to his eyes. “Just the simple words, ‘I hope you feel better soon,’ really touched him,” she said. “That little gesture makes people feel great.”
Patrick has continued his good work in recent weeks and recently saw a card delivered to a patient he’s known since birth — his grandfather, John Weldon, who happened to be in the hospital. He also got a pen pal out of the project when one of the sisters at St. Joseph suggested he start corresponding with a longtime resident. He and Sister Jane Rosko are now fast friends.
Just last week, Patrick delivered several giant and very colorful “Hope” banners to local health care facilities such as St. Clair and Jefferson hospitals. They feature “trees” crafted from dozens of paper handprints of his fellow students, along with the motto, “Let hope grow.”
While he was both surprised and overwhelmed by the honor, Patrick was quick to give a shoutout to his classmates. “They are all really willing to help, and I was grateful that it just snowballed,” he said.
Not one to sit on his laurels, Patrick is partnering with a student from Seton LaSalle to deliver fish dinners on Fridays during Lent to shut-ins. He hopes to take the “Art for Heart” program with him when he’s a ninth grader there in the fall.
He also has set up a Facebook page in case other schools, clubs or organizations would like to participate in the program. (Search @patrickartforheart on Facebook.)
“If I could take it to a bigger scale and affect more people,” he said, “that’d be great.”