February 2021

Before we knew it, the COVID-19 pandemic had been going on for almost a year. Nobody goes out much, and we rarely meet up to chat. I especially wonder about the elderly neighbors in our community – people we got to know walking the dog, selling Girl Scout cookies or organizing the street’s traditional fall party, and the very old lady who was my daughter Julia’s first piano teacher (we stopped taking her to lessons once the pandemic started). How have they been getting by while COVID raged? Now that things are a little better and several of them have had their first vaccine shot, ringing their doorbell with a mask on shouldn’t frighten them too much.

UAC Heroes’ “Loving is Caring” campaign for the elderly continues in 2021. On February 12, 2021, UAC distributed 50 love bags in communities in Westchester County, New York; on February 15, UAC delivered 150 love bags to Golden Eagle Adult Day Care Center in Flushing, New York; and on February 17, UAC delivered 200 love bags to the Longevity Garden nursing home (The Allure Group) in Brooklyn, New York.

Alongside the love bags delivered in our Loving is Caring campaign, UAC volunteers also passed on Chinese greetings and English letters from children in Shanghai and Kunming, hoping the seniors would feel the warmth sent from China. The greetings and letters came from children aged 10 to 16 in Shanghai and Kunming. For many, the English letter was the first they had ever written, with help from their teachers. The letters are short, and some children even used ballpoint pens in different colors – sincere and touching.