Mar 30, 2017 9:54:57 AM

Volunteers Make a Difference: Group Crafts Cards to Support Hospice Patients

At the Westlake Center Community Services, a group of dedicated volunteers sit together inside on a wintery day chatting quietly, sipping coffee and tea, listening to music and making gorgeous greeting cards and bookmarks with dried flowers.

The group has been meeting for over 20 years. Each hand-crafted card is donated to Visiting Nurse Association of Ohio to support hospice patients and all proceeds from the cards are also donated to VNA. The group meets one to two times a month and makes between 70 and 90 cards a session.

The designs are so intricate that the volunteers use tweezers to carefully place each piece in the exact location before sealing their designs by ironing a seal over it. They pick the flowers wherever they can find them. One volunteer, Marilyn, grows a lot of the group’s favorite flowers in her house and around her yard. The tables are a beautiful spread of petunias, pansies, red valerian, and verbena.

Once they gather the flowers, they dry them and bring them to the group sessions. They each have their preferred drying technique – many favor pressing the flowers in old phone books, others dry the flowers in the microwave.

Watch a video of the group in action:

For 115 years, VNA of Ohio’s volunteers have been the backbone of the organization. From wrapping gauze to making phone calls to providing free legal services to making intricate cards that make people smile, VNA of Ohio would like to extend a sincere “thank you” to all who devote their time and resources that better the lives of our patients and their families.

You can purchase the cards at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, Holden Arboretum and Ginko Gallery & Studio Ltd in Oberlin. All proceeds are donated to VNA of Ohio.