An article by Member Katanya Kuntz

The Elevate Progress Club in Calgary had to be creative last year, and re-think how to connect with residents of long-term care homes for Christmas 2020. Since singing carols outside their windows, even from a distance, was ruled out by the new government restrictions, Elevate decided to send personalized Christmas cards to the residents. This idea really resonated with me as I love arts & crafts… and any excuse to play with stickers!! So I decided to create individualized Christmas cards for the seniors where each card has unique artwork and a personal written message.

My intention with this project was to create a meaningful connection with the residents during these difficult times where any connection is rare. I chose large stickers with lots of details/scenery to make each card unique/interesting and easy to see. Each card had a different ‘sticker scene’ as well as a written message. In the smaller cards, I wrote “From My Heart to Yours! Thinking of You, Sending my Love Katanya”. In the larger cards, I wrote “From My Heart to Yours! We are Looking Forward to Singing for You in 2021! Sending my Love Katanya”.

In total I made 13 Large Christmas cards and 53 Small cards for a total of 66 cards!! Then I drove to Extendicare Hillcrest and Intercare Brentwood in Calgary on Dec 25  2020 to hand-deliver the cards (to the receptionist since visitors cannot enter the buildings). I took pictures of the cards/process, which can be found at this link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17KNUMUmJe_TH6ZNGxg0CTxm-O4EEPKow?usp=sharing