Students at Heartland Christian Academy Visit the Elderly at Goldpine Home

Kindergartners and eighth graders from Heartland Christian Academy visited with the elders today at Goldpine Home. The kids sang songs and made arts and crafts that were inspired by The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

One student at the elementary school said they were working on making Truffula trees with the Goldpine residents. Truffula trees are a made-up plant from the children’s book.

Each month when the kids visit the nursing home, they do an art project that is targeted towards that specific month. A specialist teacher at Heartland Christian Academy said they made Truffula trees because Dr. Seuss’s birthday is in March.

“Because of Dr. Seuss’s birthday is in March, and we just wanted to bring some sort of a spring type tree flower into their room,” Amy Graf said. “We usually try and leave their art projects here so they have a memory of when we came.”

The kids try and leave their art projects at the nursing home so the residence can have a memory of their visit. Graf said coming to the nursing home is a great service project for their students.

“Just to build relationships with the residence here and every month our kids look forward to coming, and each month we get more and more residence that show up,” Graf said.

Sarah Sundeen, Life Enrichment Coordinator at Goldpine Home, said a lot of their residents have a background in education.

“We have a lot of residents who were teachers or school bus drivers or Sunday school teachers,” Sundeen said “So not only are the residents grandparents or great grandparents, but they do have that history of working with children, and so it’s especially meaningful for those who spent a lot of time with children previously.”

The students at Heartland Christian Academy look forward to their visit to Goldpine Home and enjoy interacting with the residence there every month.