Just before the Thanksgiving holiday break, 12 students and their club advisors visited Sanford Health & Rehabilitation Center to pass out some Thanksgiving goodie bags to the residents at the facility.
One of the student volunteers, Leslie I. said, “We wanted them to feel happy and to know that there are people who care about them. We put some socks, lotion, and some other things that they might need. We also put some fun things like coloring papers that they might enjoy. We wanted to put some fun things in so they could distract themselves and just have some fun.”
Earlier this year, DECA Club - a club dedicated to preparing emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management - talked about the many different opportunities to serve the community during the school year. East Lee’s DECA Club Advisor, Ms. Angie Dezso highlighted, “We talked about it together and came up with the idea of a nursing home. We talked about how a lot of the time the people in the nursing home might be lonely and this service project with goodie bags might be a really good pick me up for them.”
Dezso’s mission in the DECA Club is pretty simple, “To make each student a better person. I want to give them experiences that they can build off of to really help them out through life.”
“Our residents were really excited that the students were here. I was excited!” laughed Kimberly Wilson, who serves as the center’s Assistant Director. “Our residents love to have visitors, especially kids. So, we were really excited when East Lee wanted to come. We do have some groups that come caroling and those types of things, but this is the first time we have ever had students coming in.”
As students would enter the room, many residents of the facility seemed surprised to be getting a visit and were smiling ear to ear as the students handed them their goodie bags and greeted them with “Happy Thanksgiving.” Ms. Dezso noted that she could tell that her students were making an impact, but also that residents’ reactions were making an impact on her students.
“I saw that our students were seeing that they could make a difference in someone else’s life. I saw a lot of the residents smiling,” said Dezso. “They were happy to get to see children. I could tell that was a big deal to them.”
Her student Leslie agreed, ““When I dropped off a bag, some of the residents would smile or they were happy to see us. It made me feel really good inside. I would definitely come back and do this again because I want to see people smile.”
