Greetings cards for the elderly
While our students are involved in the distance-learning programme, teachers across all subjects are doing their best to give opportunities to take part in different projects and activities to allow for experiences outside the standard curriculum.
One of the recent projects like this was organised by one of the teachers in our school’s English department. As part of a national initiative, people were encouraged to send cards and messages to be given to elderly citizens across Slovenia. With current restrictions regarding visits to care homes and many other older people feeling an increasing sense of loneliness as we are all encouraged to spend more time in our homes, the idea was to send a message that would brighten their day and make sure that they did not feel forgotten.
One of the students involved, Lana Savanović from 1E, prepared this short report on the project:
This year, first year students from Gimnazija Vič took part in a project called “A small gesture for great joy” which planned to bring smiles to the faces of elderly people in nursing homes and those whose families won’t be able to visit them over the holidays due to the coronavirus epidemic.
All of us designed and wrote messages inside one or more Christmas cards and sent them off to the organisers to be given to the elderly. We were very happy to find out that, along with participants from other schools and organisations, a total of 21,000 cards were made.
When working on the project, I thought about a line from the poet Emily Matthews which says, “From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another. The warmth and joy of Christmas brings us closer to each other”. I hope that we all have a happy Christmas this year and that the cards we made brings some joy to those who need it.
We would like to thank Mr Anže Perne for coordinating this project across the different classes as well as all the students involved who put so much effort into their card designs and messages in order to share a little bit of happiness with others at this time of year.
If you would like to see some of the cards which were sent as part of this project, a selection is available at the following link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2Cj7KtgJCGYgqQQ36