Loving is Caring

UAC continues to care for the elderly in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, most vulnerable and emotionally impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic. On Easter in April 2021, UAC will send love bags with holiday greetings to the elderly and their caretakers of the Bedford Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Brooklyn, New York. UAC plans to deliver 200 love bags to the elderly in this nursing home and another 200 to their caretakers.

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.

UAC Heroes’ “Loving is Caring” campaign – the last call for love in 2020 – is coming to a close. Following the love bags for St. Cabrini Nursing Home and Sprain Brook Manor Rehab in Westchester County, UAC has delivered 425 holiday love bags to Cliffside Rehabilitation & Residential Health Care Center in New York City: 250 bags for staff arrived on December 22 and 175 bags for residents on December 24. Along the way, many volunteers, especially teenagers, eagerly helped make love cards and pack the bags, which moved us deeply.

UAC Heroes’ “Loving is Caring” campaign for the elderly continues. Following the love bags for St. Cabrini Nursing Home and Sprain Brook Manor Rehab in Westchester County (shown in the video above), UAC plans to deliver 425 holiday love bags before New Year’s Day to the 175 residents and 250 staff of Cliffside Rehabilitation & Residential Health Care Center in New York City.

Before the most important holiday of this extraordinary year of 2020, will you join us in brightening the holidays for our seniors? 2020 is drawing to a close, but the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the US shows no sign of stopping. In nursing homes and other long-term care facilities – the places hit hardest by COVID deaths – the virus keeps breaking out in clusters. In November, a nursing home in Chesterfield, Virginia reported 16 COVID deaths, and a Kansas nursing home reported that all 62 of its residents had been infected.

UAC continues to care for one of the groups hit hardest by COVID-19: seniors in nursing homes. For Thanksgiving, UAC delivered a total of 205 love bags to Sprain Brook Manor nursing home in Westchester County, New York – 80 for the staff and 125 for the residents.

Cabrini nursing home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, is a large facility with 304 beds. During the pandemic, to keep the virus out, it restricted residents’ outdoor activities and visits from family and friends, leaving the seniors alone in their rooms for long stretches. Even in July and August, when the outbreak eased a little, they could only see their loved ones through a window. To show the seniors we care and to cheer them on, UAC launched this Love Bag campaign. The bags for staff contained small bottles of hand sanitizer, KN95 masks, candy and thank-you cards; the bags for residents also included memory card games, small crafts, mini Rubik’s cubes and other little toys to help pass the lonely hours.

UAC’s Love Bag campaign is under way. Two young volunteers have delivered 100 love-filled bags to the night-shift staff at Cabrini nursing home, and another 250 bags are being prepared for Cabrini’s residents. Here are photos from preparing and delivering the bags. This week we also received 274 hand-drawn love cards – thank you to all our young artists – and some of them are shown below. Finally, many thanks to the Girl Scouts of Hudson, Troop 1686 & Troop 2429; Girl Scouts of Danbury, Troop 252; Cub Scouts Pack 24, Dobbs Ferry; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – Primary; Danbury Chinese Alliance church; Yueyi Xintian Organic Store; and Bodhi Vegetarian Restaurant in Flushing for their generous support of this campaign.