Seniors receive Valentine’s Day cards
About 60 seniors at the Sparr Heights Community Center in Glendale celebrated Valentine’s Day on Tuesday by selecting holiday cards that were created by children at the Montrose Library.
The center is almost a century old and offers seniors quality-of-life programs and services as well as meals on weekdays. Seniors can participate in a number of leisure activities including games, dancing and fitness programs.
To mark the holiday, Maggie Kavarian, the city’s community services supervisor, helped organize a Valentine’s Day luncheon with live music and an opportunity for seniors to select one of about 30 hand-crafted cards.
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Last week, kids ages 4 to 12 visited the Montrose Library for its annual Valentine’s Day “Crafternoon,” where they could use numerous art supplies to create holiday cards with a message of love to later be placed on a tree for seniors at the community center.
Runbina Markosyan, a library monitor, helped the young volunteers create their cards throughout the week and said the program makes both the children and seniors happy.
“It brings a lot of joy and appreciation for the local senior citizens,” Markosyan said. “It’s a good cause.”
During the luncheon on Tuesday, Glendale resident Irma Olsen, 71, danced to live music and invited others to join her. A frequent volunteer since retiring, Olsen also handed out heart-shaped lollipops with drawn-on smiles and eyes to fellow seniors.
She said the key to a good Valentine’s Day card is exactly what the children at the library created, something homespun and not store-bought.
“Please show love to anybody you love, even people you don’t love,” Olsen said. “Give them a smile, make them happy.”
Sitting and eating lunch with friends, John Abercrombie, 87, said he has enjoyed activities at Sparr Heights Community Center for more than a decade, often playing pool in the game room.
Abercrombie is a retired power-line supervisor at Glendale Water and Power, where he spent 32 years, nearly half as long as he’s been married.
He’ll hit 63 years of marriage in August.
“[For Valentine’s Day], sometimes I’d give my wife a card and box of chocolates,” Abercrombie said. “Keep it simple.”
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda