This Valentine's Day, the Red Lake Regional Heritage Centre brought back an old favourite event, Valentines Inspirations/Sentiments for Seniors.
The event was hosted by the centre's education and events intern, Jessica Nagy.
“It’s a great way to get out of your comfort zone, and meet someone new and make something new too,” Nagy said.
On February 10th, nine locals came to the centre to make Valentine's cards for the seniors at both Northwood Lodge and the Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital.
Then on Monday, the cards were delivered to be distributed for Valentine's Day. Forty-eight cards were made in total, with 32 brought to Northwood lodge, and 16 to the hospital.
“It was successful in a way I didn’t expect,” says Nagy. “Our crowd was mostly an older generation, but it was lovely to get to sit and hear their stories.”
Nagy put out many things decorations for the participants to use in their card making. The heritage centre provided the card stock, some blank and some with images, and printed out colouring pages. Stickers, paint and markers were made available to decorate the cards.
“It was a great attitude all around,” says Nagy. “The people were like, its okay to not be good at this, we’re here to do something new. They were very determined to make sure we had enough cards. ”
The Valentines for Seniors event was an annual event at the heritage centre prior to the roof blowing off in September 2019. As the rebuilding of the museum nears completion, the reopening of the main Main gallery Gallery is getting closer. Staff are trying to hold more events like this one to bring back their patrons.
Plans for future events include a basket weaving craft in March, and they have a week of kid’s crafts planned for spring break.
“We’re trying to build up the energy here, to try to remind everyone that we’re here and to get things going again,” says Nagy.
