Share the Love with a Service-Themed Valentine's Day Party
Make cards to share the love!
It's that time of year again, that heart-shaped extravaganza of sugar and silly puns!
We’re back, reminding you to shrug off your disdain for the explosion of pink and purchasable junk in the stores.
Think of Valentine’s Day as the perfect time to re-focus your family on living generously. Let’s make this a holiday all about sharing love, kindness, and compassion.
Gather your child’s school friends, invite your neighbors, and host a card-making party to share and celebrate compassion. This is a service project you can pull together quickly with great success.
My 9-year-old daughter said it best during the festivities last year:
“I like making Valentine cards because I like being creative and I like cheering people up. These cards do both. Plus, it lets them [the people at her great-grandpa's nursing home] know they are loved and cared about.”
For years, our family has hosted an annual card-making party, starting weeks before Valentine's Day to be sure our cards will be completed and delivered on time.
Every year, the kids and their friends (and parents too) have had a great time. Together, we've created stacks of beautiful, sometimes silly, and always imaginative designs. It's wonderful to listen in while the kids swap stories about visiting elderly friends and family.
This project is sure to lighten up these dark cold days of winter.
First, plan your party.
When and where can you gather?
If you are sending your cards to an organization that will share them on your behalf, plan early! Deadlines will usually be around the 20th of January.
If you plan to deliver your cards yourself, to a local nursing home or hospital perhaps, you can plan your event a little later.
Be sure to allow enough time for guests to create, share their creations with each other, and enjoy a fun party game or two as well.
Second, choose where you’ll share your cards.
Do you have a family connection to a nursing home, hospital, or community in need of support? This would be a great place to start.
If you don’t have a personal connection, contact one of the following and ask if they would accept donations of cards and possibly candy:
Local nursing home
Local children’s hospital
Local Meals on Wheels
Mail to Cards for Hospitalized Kids
Mail to Hugs for Soldiers
Third, who will join you?
Have fun sending out your invites. Will you be gathering school friends, your child’s basketball team, neighbors, or simply setting up a card-making station for intermittent house guests over the next month?
Note: I’m often asked how to adapt this party for boys. Do not exclude boys from crafty kindness like this. Remember, boys or men will likely receive some of these cards too, and celebrations of love and compassion know no gender. We always add in a wide variety of stickers and colored paper options, and our guests create a wide array of cards.
Fourth, gather your materials!
Scissors
Markers, crayons, etc.
Glue sticks
If guests offer to bring craft supplies, welcome them! The more materials, the more creativity the kids can unleash.
Some direction can help kids get even more creative with their cards.
For example, gather wild-life magazine, googly eyes, and an animal-themed joke-book and invite kids to create silly animal cards. Or browse pinterest for your own favorite craft idea.
Toss in a cake and some red balloons, and you’ll be ready to party.
Fifth, read about it!
We highly recommend Somebody Loves you, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli. This story is not only beautifully written and funny, but also perfectly illuminates some crucial big ideas:
People all around us might be lonely.
Cheerful mail can change someone’s whole day.
Sharing kindness with someone may inspire them to pass it on.
And reaching out to your community can make everyone feel less lonely.
Of course, you may want to gather lots of the books in our unique collection of picture books that celebrate love.
Sixth, It’s time to party! Create! Reflect!
Of course, the kids didn’t craft for hours and hours. Our guests arrived ready to dance, play, and giggle first. Once they settled down, we gather around a table full of crafting goodies and talk while we create. Here are some of the questions that really got their conversation going:
Have you ever been to a nursing home? Children’s hospital?
What do you think it would be like to be away from your home, unable to get around the way you usually do?
Have you ever felt lonely? What might make you feel less lonely?
Why do you think the people who receive our creations will think of them?
What messages do you think you should add to your card? What might make others smile?
How do you imagine they’ll react?
Finally, deliver your cards.
If you can deliver them in person, that is really the most fun and the most meaningful for everyone. When we can’t, we package them up with chocolate hearts and a special note for whoever will be distributing them. Then we send them through the mail.
Have you hosted a card-making party?
What are your tips for success?
Looking for more ideas? Check out our other creative opportunities for kindness!
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The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.