For Valentine’s Day—

A Young And Generous Heart Reaches Across Generations

By Shannon Hicks

Valentine’s Day is Monday and thanks to one generous young man, every resident at one of Newtown’s assisted living communities will receive a handmade valentine on February 14.

Noah Burhance decided to make use of some of his unexpected free time during the recent spate of weather-related school cancellations.

“He decided on a snow day — or two, actually — to construct 100 valentines for the residents of Maplewood of Newtown,” said Noah’s mother, Linda Burhance.

Noah used two and three layers of cut-out hearts to create the valentines. He purchased red construction paper, said his mother, and then used tan paper and patterned paper, also cut into hearts, to create the multidimensional cards.

When school resumed, Noah brought them into school and asked the students of Newtown Middle School 7 Blue cluster to sign them. And then last weekend, the 13-year-old and his mother went to Maplewood to drop off the gift.

Tracy Brady is the activities director at Maplewood of Newtown. She worked with Noah in arranging for the valentines to be dropped off last weekend, and will take care of delivering them to the residents on Monday.

“The residents are excited,” Ms Brady said this week. “They know a holiday is coming, and that there is something special for them.”

To transport the large collection of valentines safely, Noah covered a cardboard box with more hand-cut hearts and added a sign that identified the gathered items as Be My Valentine Project. He used that box to get the valentines into Maplewood on February 5, and left the box and its contents with Ms Brady.

“Many of the residents come into my office regularly to visit me, and they have seen the box so they know something special is coming,” said Ms Brady. “We will be distributing the valentines, along with other gifts and goodies that volunteers organizations donate to our residents.”

Maplewood at Newtown has residents who live within an assisted living area, and others who live in a memory care unit. There are “absolutely” enough valentines for everyone, said Ms Brady. In fact, Noah’s generosity will be shared not only in Newtown but also in Danbury.

“We have about 60 residents currently, so we are going to donate the extras to our sister community in Danbury,” said Ms Brady, who pointed out that one of Maplewood’s lead goals is to promote intergenerational activities. “We love to bring all different generations into Maplewood.

“Every holiday is a beautiful event here,” she said, “and to have someone like Noah share his heart with us like this, to take the time to share with others the way he has, we are so grateful for this.”