Kids' valentines hit the mark

Kindergarten students from Noah’s Ark Learning Center spread the love Monday by bringing handmade valentines to the residents at Bestland Independent Senior Living.

Josie Honsaker, 5, said she worked hard on the valentines she made, but that wasn’t the best part of the day’s excursion.

“My favorite part was singing the song because they really liked it,” she said.

After handing out paper valentines shaped like lions, elephants, puppies, mice and other animals, all with a plethora of pink and red hearts glued everywhere, the kids sang a special Valentine’s Day song:

“I’m a little valentine, just for you; made with paper, scissors and glue. Inside there’s a message: please be mine, and I’ll be your little valentine.”

Helen Hansen, a 96-year-old resident at Bestland, and her friend Louise Gardiner, also a resident, reminisced about a time when they sang songs and made things out of paper and glue.

“The kids are so cute. We were that way once,” Hansen said as both ladies chuckled. “When you get to be our age, you really appreciate something like this. It just makes your heart flutter.”

Laurie Petroni, a kindergarten teacher at Noah’s Ark, said her class spent two weeks making more than 90 valentines, one for each resident at Bestland.

She said the valentines were part of her class’s unit about community service and giving back.

Petroni said they chose to go to Bestland on Monday because senior centers don’t get as many visitors for Valentine’s Day as they do on other holidays.

“We’re trying to teach them to be good citizens of the world,” she said. “We are lucky to live in the U.S. where we can go to school and pray any way we want to.”

This is the third year in a row Petroni’s kindergarten class has brought valentines to Bestland.

Dana Klaas, the executive director of Bestland, said she was excited to see the kids come back.

“[Our residents] love it. It makes them feel really good and loved,” she said. “It was so sweet and you can just tell the residents melted.”