Handmade Cards Cheer Hospitalized Children

“Kids love to do something for others,” shared Susan Zador, founder of the Mail For Me Club, a group of volunteers of all ages making cards for sick children in the surrounding local hospitals. The group meets in various city libraries through the IE since 2000. Recently, the club met in the Grand Terrace Branch Library to make Easter-themed cards for children in the care of nearby hospitals. Genesis Llamas, a 10-year-old Grand Terrace resident, says she knows what it's like to be in the hospital with little visitation. She participated last Valentine’s Day, and has come back to make cards for the children. “This club is great, because the children learn to do something for someone else,” said Llamas' mother, Espy Cervantes. Zador shared that it was her son who inspired her to start the Mail For Me Club. She shared that one of her son's childhood friends passed away after being hospitalized for quite some time and he asked, “Mom why did I not visit him and take him a handmade card?” Zador and the Mail for Me Club now delivers cards to hospitals once a month. In addition to the Mail For Me Club for sick children, Zador has a handmade card and visitation project dedicated to the elderly in retirement homes and those on hospice care, called Visiting the Lonely Ones. “We visit them to let them know that we remember them,” Zador shared, “Some of the residents hang the cards on the wall.” Zador was nominated Woman of the Year 2014 by Assemblyman Mike Morrell and was honored in Sacramento for her dedication to the community.