Five-year-old Grace Larson, a student at Newton School in Greenfield, traced letters onto a heart-shaped construction paper valentine one recent morning, carefully spelling out a holiday greeting based on examples projected onto a screen. From the front of the classroom, Teacher Jackie Swist called instructions to Larson and her 19 classmates.
“Remember, you have the ‘x’s and ‘o’s for hugs and kisses if you’d like to add them,” Swist said as she wrote Valentine’s Day-themed words the kids might want to use on the digital display. Swist noted the card-making endeavor fit into the class’ theme for February, which is “kindness.”
To passersby, the young students’ efforts might have seemed to be a little bit helter-skelter — the children laughed as they indiscriminately selected colorful hearts and lathered glue sticks thickly onto the paper. But they had a method.
“I put the big one (a heart sticker) on this way and the smiley faces went this way because I wanted them to go in order,” said Hunter Wilkins, 5, as he traced a finger over his sticker-clad card.
Their thoughtful attention to detail was appreciated by the recipients of the cards — thousands of area elders.
“It really did warm my heart,” said Catherine Etheridge, 73, of Sunderland, of the card she received. “It’s very beautiful — it has pink paper and then there’s a red heart that has white and red polka dots on it.”
The handmade cards were collected and delivered in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day by volunteers and employees of LifePath, a social services organization for elders based in Greenfield.
LifePath started the card-making program in 2015 as a component of Meals on Wheels, a program that distributes meals to area elders. In the first year, about 450 cards were delivered, according to Holly Holloway, a senior administrative assistant at the social services organization. Last year, dozens of area schools, from Petersham Center School in Petersham to the Smith College Campus School in Northampton, contributed more than 1,600 cards.
In addition to being a holiday-themed creative assignment, Lynne Feldman, director of community services at LifePath, said the project has a more profound impetus. In a small way, the cards create a generational connection, Feldman said, “alleviating some of the social isolation of elders who aren’t as connected to a community. … Valentine’s Day presents an opportunity because it’s about love.”
For Etheridge, the card was a shot in the arm. On a daily basis, Etheridge says she knows what it’s like to feel isolated.
“I live in a housing complex that has some older people, but mostly it has graduate students — from all over the world,” Etheridge said. “I don’t have a car. When I go out, I go out by bus, and my favorite part of the day is riding the bus — I like to be with the kids. If I’m out, I’m not working at my house. And when I’m (there), I feel very isolated.”
This wasn’t always the case. When she was younger, Etheridge, who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., remembers living “in a different world.”
“When I was young, all my aunts and uncles got together for Christmas. They all lived close to where we lived. They all worked for Kodak,” she said. “Everybody moved out of Rochester. They just got devastated by automation and foreign competition. My generation, they all live in North Carolina. A couple stayed in Rochester — and by a couple I mean two — otherwise, they live in North Carolina.”
These days, Etheridge, who moved to the region from Boston in 1998, says she does have some family members who live nearby, but they’re busy. Her grandson, for example, attends Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
“He likes it so much that he stays at MIT during the summer,” she said, noting that America’s changing economic landscape has profoundly impacted the way families interact. “People have less leisure time to get together.”
Especially because the Feb. 14 holiday comes in the middle of winter, a time when seasonal depression rates are exceptionally high, Feldman says the cards can help to stave off loneliness, which can be a risk factor for more serious conditions.
Biologically, for example, chronic loneliness can activate the body’s biological defense mechanism, triggering the onset of more serious conditions, according to a recent report from the National Institute on Aging. Among those conditions, the report says research has linked social isolation to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease and even death. It can also weaken the body’s immune system, making isolated elders more susceptible to viruses than other age groups.
Social isolation is a notable risk factor in this region because Franklin County has a higher-than-average rate of senior citizens. Twenty-two percent of the 70,000 people who live here are older than 65 years old, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Comparatively, of the population statewide, 16.5 percent is older than 65.
With that, Feldman noted that a sense of community can act as a defense against social isolation and its associated risk factors — a mechanism that LifePath employees and volunteers help create every day.
“They light up, they’re so happy,” said Bryanna Nadeau, of Montague, a staff member at LifePath’s Rethermalization Center for Home Delivered Meals, which is the regional distribution center for Meals on Wheels, a national program. She was busy putting Valentine’s Day cards in with the meals ahead of Friday’s distribution. While Nadeau primarily packages meals at the Erving facility, she sometimes helps the organization’s 55 volunteers with deliveries.
“There’s one gentleman who tells me every time that he’s ‘so happy to receive a meal,’” Nadeau said. “That’s just a good feeling.”
According to Charlie Cornish, the center’s manager, the meals program — which distributes about 500 hot dinners daily — fills a need that’s broader than food.
“More than a meal, it’s a wellness check,” Cornish said, noting, “usually, the son or daughter can’t get there every day.”
To that end, Holloway said she expects more than 2,000 card deliveries this year to elders living throughout Western Massachusetts in Franklin, Hampshire, Worcester and Berkshire counties. In addition to the Meals on Wheels network, LifePath drops off bundles to area senior centers and health care facilities like Buckley HealthCare Center in Greenfield and Quabbin Valley Healthcare in Athol.
“It’s lovely. It’s lovely. It’s lovely,” Etheridge said about the program, which she says made her holiday celebration a little brighter — as it undoubtedly did for elders throughout the region.
And for the students, Swist said making cards was a way “to give back to others and make them feel like they’re not forgotten.”
Andy Castillo is the features editor at the Greenfield Recorder. He can be reached at acastillo@recorder.com.
Annually, LifePath’s Meals on Wheels program distributes about 127,000 meals to about 1,000 homebound clients in 30 Franklin County and North Quabbin towns. All deliveries include a wellness check. Each meal costs about $10, with $3.30 of that directly paying for the food. There’s a suggested donation for clients of $2.50 per meal, although the average donation is $1. For more information and to find out how to donate or sign up, and for schools that wish to participate in next year’s Valentine’s Day card drive, visit lifepathma.org.