A 12-year-old Guelph student proved to her entire school that as long as there is an intention to help, it doesn’t take much to make an impact.
In her case, all it took was a pen and a paper and her entire school jumped on board to participate to write hundreds of letters to seniors in the community.
Isabelle Peverley, a Grade 6 student at St. Michael Catholic School, launched a school-wide letter writing campaign called ‘Letters of Love’ to show seniors in the community that the community loves them.
“I was kind of feeling unfilled and I wanted to do something for our community,” said Peverley.
“I really just wanted to make elders smile. I really just wanted to make someone’s day,” said Peverley, adding that she knows that her grandparents — who are in a home in Guelph — have friends there who feel lonely.
After sharing her thoughts about wanting to give back to the community with her mother, the two researched some initiatives online and were inspired by a non-profit organization called ‘Letters of Love to our Elders’ which sends handwritten letters to elders in senior communities across the globe. The letters include jokes, riddles, kind notes and pictures.
Peverley thought it was time to bring this initiative to Guelph so she pitched the idea to her teacher Paul Tersigni last week.
“She came to me with the whole idea planned to a tee with her mom. Making announcements at the school, helping create promotional posters and visiting each classroom in our school. She also involved our class with this and was very welcoming to ideas from her peers,” said Tersigni in a press release.
Soon, the letter-writing concept took off and students both inside and outside of her class were participating.
“Every student in our class wrote a letter and every other class in our school is participating. We have already received folders full of letters from many classes in our school,” said Tersigni. “We should have around 250 letters from our school when it is all said and done.”
The letters will be delivered to three retirement homes in Guelph this week.
Peverley said her brother Frederick in Grade 3 and sister Elena in senior kindergarten also stepped up to take initiative.
“My brother and sister loved making the cards and they helped their teachers showing everyone what to do,” she said.
“It really does make me feel really good that everyone really helped. They didn't just stop because it was COVID.”
Peverley said her most memorable moment was holding all the letters when they were completed.
“That really helped me smile because it really helped that everyone did it. Every classroom, probably every student did it,” said Peverley.
Her mother Nathalie Peverley said when discussing COVID blues with her children, they talked about the importance of doing something for oneself, family and the community.
“And it had been a while since you could do something for the community because of the COVID restrictions,” said Natalie, adding that it was important for them to find something anyone can do using just a pen and paper.
“That made us very proud that she started it and put her head down to try to make her teacher really jump on board with her plan and doing announcements, doing the video, showing kids what they can do with the riddles,” said Nathalie.
She said the support from staff at the school to launch the initiative speaks volumes about the school.
“The school being so flexible and open really showed her how a small idea can just have a huge impact,” said Nathalie.
