PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A Pinellas County woman wants residents of assisted living facilities to feel the way you feel when you get an unexpected card or gift in the mail, and she’s asking for the public’s help to make it happen. 

“They can’t see their family, they can’t see their friends, and they can’t even see some doctors unless they absolutely have to see a doctor," said Mary Ellen Lewellyn. "Even doctors aren’t going into the assisted living facilities."

After talking with her friends who work as nurses at Grand Villa of Largo Senior Living and Bellair Rehab, she made this post online asking people to send cards to the people in the facilities.

“I mentioned, 'how bout if we were to send a card? It’s pretty safe. You get a card in, they can sanitize the mail on the way in,'” she said. “If you’re at home and you’re not finding a lot to do, turn off the Netflix just for a little bit, sit down, write a note to someone. Put a stamp on it, it’s not that big of a deal and send it to someone else."

Since then, the cards have been pouring into those facilities, many of them handmade. Lewellen’s friend in Texas actually made a video to help show people how to make homemade cards if they can’t get to the store to buy one, all in an effort to encourage people to use an old form of communication to make someone’s day.

"There could be that one person that was thinking that particular day they just can’t take it anymore, and all of a sudden a card lands at their door and it comes from someone over in Amsterdam, because I have people over there doing it, too," Lewellyn explained. "And would that not change their frame of mind? I think so."

So grab your crafts and write a note to someone special to any assisted living facility. It might just make someone’s day and yours.

The two locations Lewellyn is encouraging people to write to are:

• Grand Villa of Largo located at 750 Starkey Road Largo, FL 33771 and
• Bellair Rehab, Attention Leah Shackton 1150 Ponce de Leon, Clearwater, FL 33756