Students designed the cards by hand and helped deliver them to local nursing homes.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — More than 400 North Adams and Adams students made holiday cards for Northern Berkshire elderly, veterans, and those in need this past season.

Sullivan Elementary School teaching assistant Nathan Sampson said he had a goal to have students from Sullivan and  Brayton elementary schools, the Adams Youth Center and the Berkshire 4H program design and make 400 holiday cards.

Instead, they made more than 700 that were delivered to every resident in the North Adams Commons and Williamstown Commons nursing homes, along with veterans from the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke and the North Adams Meals on Wheels.

"Students joined forces and we created holiday cards for all of our elderly in North Adams ... and in Williamstown," Sampson said. "We had enough for all of our residents. It was quite incredible."

Sampson said the projected originated from Sullivan third-grade teacher Anna Saldo-Burke, who retired a few months ago. He and Sullivan science teacher James Holmes were discussing possible service learning projects and decided to resurrect the holiday card project.

"All Meals on Wheels people in the county will get a holiday card with their meal," Holmes wrote in email before Christmas. "He has done a tremendous job getting Sullivan students involved with the community."

Sampson, who away over the holidays, said he was excited to see youth interacting with the elderly and others in the community.

"It was really good to see kids from North Adams and Adams working together in a community service project," he said. "It is very important that kids are doing community service and learning about their community."

Sampson said something as simple as a holiday card can mean so much around the holidays.

"It's a nice reminder that the kids in our community care about them," Sampson said. "It's good because a lot of them don't have families anymore and to just receive a holiday card ... keeps them going and maybe gives them some more energy."

Sampson said he has always been interested in community building and the project not only was good for the card recipients, but the students, too.

"It's important to get kids together instead of them being on the streets or doing things they shouldn't be doing," he said. "To get them together and sit down for a few hours to create cards I think it is very important."

Sampson said the exchanging of cards was very touching.

"When I brought cards over to Williamstown, the lady asked 'you have cards for us?' and I said 'yes, for every single one of your residents,' " he said. "It put me in tears. She was very impressed by the project. The students were just really excited to be able to give a card to every single person they could." 

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