Seniors at Sun Village Homes in Hialeah, created a Mother’s Day themed craft as a quartet of Hispanic singers sang Christian songs in Spanish. The 12 seniors enjoyed a sense of community as they decorated cups and filled them with paper flowers like a Mother’s Day bouquet, and loved visiting with Heart2Heart representatives.

“We focused on Mother’s Day activities, celebrating and focusing on mothers,” said Marlyn Guevara, Heart2Heart’s programs manager.

Heart2Heart expands south

Heart2Heart teamed up with the church, Comunidad De Fe (Community of Faith) and its singers, Amor en Acción, to expand its outreach to a new care center, just 25 minutes outside of Miami. 

While Heart2Heart is based in Broward County, it has been expanding further into the Miami metro area. Heart2Heart continues to look for additional volunteers and partnerships with more churches, facilities and resources in Hialeah and other parts of Miami-Dade County.

A new partnership

In the case of Sun Village Homes, Heart2Heart CEO Juan Gallo had connections with the care center.  Marlyn found Comunidad De Fe and facilitated the partnership. 

“The plan is for once a month the church will visit Sun Village Homes on a weekend to do activities and ministry outreach,” Marlyn said. 

For this first visit, Heart2Heart helped lead the craft, filling bags with stickers, cups, paper flowers, straws, pom poms and other decorative items needed to craft the Mother’s Day flower cups. 

After the craft and singing, Comunidad De Fe led the seniors in a Bible study conducted in Spanish. There’s a mix of backgrounds at Sun Village Homes, but many are Hispanic and most people there speak both Spanish and English, Marlyn said. 

Connection and appreciation

As the hour and a half event progressed, more seniors joined the fun as they didn’t want to miss out.

“They were happy for us to be there and kept asking when we were coming back,’” Marlyn said. “They were just excited seeing new faces and doing something different. Even though it was an easy craft, they all wanted to be a part of it.”

At the end of the event, Heart2Heart passed out five canvas paintings that members of the Heart2Heart board of directors recently completed on a leader retreat. There were two men and three women who stayed until the very end, so each of them received one of the paintings.

“They were so surprised and happy,” Marlyn said. “At first, they didn’t realize it was a gift to them. We explained that the board members did them and wanted them to have them. They were excited and loved all the colors.”

One painting was of a sunset and a cross, while another was a field of flowers. Still others had a beach sunset scene, and another had hearts, flowers and a tree. Each of the seniors couldn’t wait to put the new painting up in their room.

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