A Little Bit of Love service project put the Mercy in Mercy Mester! With Valentine’s Day coming up, Ms. Monsalve and Mrs. Cimorelli wanted to help the girls at Gwynedd show their love for their community, their school, the people in their lives, and themselves. Each day a different one of these aspects were focused on. There were also three projects per day for different groups of girls to work on.

On the first day, the girls focused on their love of community by creating Valentine’s Day cards, decorations, and placemats for the residents of Sunrise. Girls from the Gwynedd community visit Sunrise throughout the year to participate in service through Ministry and Service. This service project was a nice way to show our love for those residents, who may be feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day. The cards, decorations, and placemats were all decked out in hearts, vibrant colors, thoughtful notes, and a lot of love.

On the second day of A Little Bit of Love, girls focused on their love for Gwynedd. One of the most important projects worked on this day were retirement cards for our wonderful principal Ms. Kirby. The girls wrote her very thoughtful and heartfelt letters to show Gwynedd’s love for her this Valentine’s Day. They also wrote positive school notes to be displayed on designated lockers, along with posters containing positive affirmations or inspiring quotes to be hung throughout the school. The purpose of this is to encourage students and enhance the school’s environment. The final project was aimed to aid incoming freshmen with welcome cards that included advice or words of wisdom from Gwynedd students.

The final day focused on the love for self and the impactful people in one’s life. To take time for themselves, the girls got to make keychains with gimp, which are plastic strings. Creating gimp braids takes a lot of concentration, but once girls got into a rhythm, it became a great way to wrap up a busy week. Another project girls had the opportunity to work on was writing congratulatory letters to themselves. This was a really great way for girls who may be a little too hard on themselves to see in writing all their accomplishments in semester one. The love in your life project was a part of the love for self day. Part of loving yourself is loving the important people in your life who have impacted you for the better. This project highlighted this concept by having girls create a Valentine’s Day card for the person or people they love and appreciate the most.

Overall, the service project A Little Bit of Love was a great way to celebrate an early Valentine’s Day with the people in multiple communities. More importantly, the projects helped girls reflect on all the love they have in their lives and encouraged them to share that love with themselves and all the people in their community!