4 minute read
Sun catchers made by students bring joy to residents in area assisted living facility
Students at the Pattonville Early Childhood Center were incredibly focused as they carefully placed beads, pieces of colored tissue paper and other decorative items on sticky paper. They were creating stunning sun catchers to donate to the residents at the St. Andrew’s Assisted Living facility in Bridgeton.
“It’s a smaller assisted living community, but it’s in our community, which is why we chose them,” early childhood social worker Erica Abowitz said. “We have heard that some of the community members don’t have as many visitors. So we wanted to make sure that everybody has something from our younger generation, our younger friends. Let them know our younger friends are thinking about them.”
The building’s Community Service Committee provided all of the supplies for the sun catchers, meaning that no one was left out because they couldn’t contribute any items for the project.
“We are giving our staff and students everything they need to make it happen,” Abowitz said. “It doesn’t require families to do anything. It’s a school-family-community feel-good project that everybody gets to participate in. There are no restrictions. Every single child can participate.”
Teachers shared with the students that the sun catchers would be donated to residents living at St. Andrew’s, trying to make it as relatable as possible. While not all of the students fully understood the assisted living concept, they were excited to gift their artwork to others. The consensus was that they liked using the sticky adhesive paper and that the sun catchers were pretty.
“We’re making sun catchers for the people that live in the grandma home because they are pretty,” Remy Colletti said. “I liked peeling the sticky paper because it’s fun.”
Other students acknowledged that the sun catchers would also impact the residents’ mood.
“They’re going to put them inside their house on their window so they can see the sunset through it,” Amenze Okhomina said. “It’s going to make them feel good. I think it’s pretty.”
When early childhood teacher Christine Kent delivered the sun catchers to St. Andrew’s, she showed pictures of two students holding the sun catchers so the residents could see the love that went into the artwork.
“I met three residents,” Kent said. “One of them, Charlesine, said the sun catchers reminded her of her great niece. She kept telling me how sweet it was that the kids made them for her. Another, Linda, remarked on how pretty the sun catchers were. The third, Terry, asked me to tell the kids ‘Thank you.’”
Throughout the year, the Community Service Committee has organized other opportunities for early learners to give back. They hosted a canned food drive and assisted with the district’s holiday gift giving program. With Pennies for PAWS, students donated spare change to help shelter animals. All of these community service projects also tie in to learning standards such as counting, sorting and building fine motor skills.
“Everything that we do here is about teaching,” Abowitz said. “With the sun catchers, it’s a good combination of teaching and community service. We’re helping with their fine motor skills as well as building, counting and sorting. It’s also about teamwork, working together, showing kindness and caring, all the good things we want them to take with them into life.”
In addition to the sun catchers, students also made friendship cards around Valentine’s Day for people in a different assisted living facility. Now that early childhood staff have made connections with a few assisted living facilities, they would like to continue to build on that relationship next school year by having classroom buddies for residents. Classrooms and residents would continue to build relationships throughout the year by writing letters and students could make gifts for their buddies.
“Our plan is to eventually get to where, because there’s not a ton of them there, to adopt a senior buddy,” Kent said. “We’ll have a picture of their buddy in their classroom and then we’ll send them a card on their birthday and on holidays.”
