Future Healthcare Professionals Club (FHP) hosted their Valentine’s Day meeting Feb. 6 at NC to create and decorate cards for residents at various assisted living facilities in the area. Members met to make colorful Valentine’s Day cards with thoughtful messages.

A service club, but also an educational opportunity for students interested in future medical careers, FHP has a lot to offer, sponsor Sylvia Tanious said. Through activities such as presentations from real healthcare workers, along with service days, members gain knowledge and experience in providing support to those in need. 

Making Valentine’s Day cards may seem trivial, but it means a lot to the people on the receiving end, Tanious said. Club sponsors and officers worked to organize the meeting with enough time to drop them off before Valentine’s Day. Each person who attended was asked to create at least two cards with fun, humorous, or colorful decorations. 

While the making of the cards was entertaining, it was also very rewarding, Nada Jumic ‘24 said. 

“It’s just great to bring a little bit of joy to the people who can’t get out this Valentine’s Day,” Phoebe Lettiere ‘23 said. 

A fulfilling experience, this event gave members a sense of giving back to the community, Lettiere said. 

FHP offers many other service opportunities, such as toy and blanket drives. The annual blanket making drive gives students the opportunity to create and donate blankets to deliver to Loyola Children’s Hospital. This is tentatively planned for late March.

To provide these blankets, club members meet and divide into groups, each group working together to create knot blankets out of felt brought in by the sponsors. Members make anywhere from 200 to 400 different blankets as a way to give back to the community. The event not only brings people together, but also contributes to a good cause, Alexa Nicola ‘23 said. 

Due to many visiting restrictions in the winter, blankets are typically not delivered to the hospital until the spring.

“It’s just really cool to see the reactions and how grateful patients are for something that we created,” Nicola said.