These valentines are special

Students at Gretchen Reeder Elementary School have opened their hearts to area nursing home residents.

For the fifth year, the 500-plus students made Valentines to be distributed to nursing home residents.

This year, the school joined an effort by local radio station KGBI, Desert Ministries and Hy-Vee to collect valentines from throughout the metro area to give to area retirees, assisted-living facilities and nursing home residents.

Paul Falkowski, executive director of Omaha-based Desert Ministries, said the program hopes to collect between 8,000 to 10,000 valentines, and deliver them Sunday to between 30 and 50 nursing homes.

“We pledged 500 Valentines,” Reeder principal Suzanne Hinman said. “We have a little over 500 students here, so we thought that was an easy goal. I'm sure we'll surpass it.”

The students have been making Valentines for the past two weeks, and the cards will be delivered to Hy-Vee today, Hinman said.

“One of the goals we have at our school is to help our children understand that it's important to give back to their community through community service projects,” she said.

The school has done projects for Hurricane Katrina relief and Haitian earthquake relief, she said.

“We made these valentines to make the people in nursing homes feel good and to give them cheer in their day,” said fifth-grader Lauren Marcuzzo

“We want the people at the nursing home to know that people are out there caring about them and thinking about them,” agreed fifth-grader Bailey Mittlieder.

Area Hy-Vees have collection boxes for valentines, and Falkowski encouraged all Omaha-area residents to drop off cards.

“We get some valentines that will knock your eyes out,” he said.

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