Vivre sans aimer n’est pas proprement vivre. “To live without loving is to not really live.”  This is an important message the French Club is trying to spread this Valentine’s Day with their student led community project.

The French Club, led by French teacher Jacqueline Parr and senior presidents Sara Norton and Ingrid Newquist, is making Valentine’s Day cards for senior citizens at The Lakes nursing home in Stillwater. Their goal is to spread kindness and remind the residents that everyone deserves to be loved.

“It’s giving back and just putting love and kindness into people’s day who might not have that love, or they do but they don’t see their family a lot because they live in a nursing home. So, you know, I just wanted to spread kindness. You know, a lot of people who do live in senior living homes, they’ve lost their spouse or they live their with their spouse. But they obviously can’t live on their own, so it can be harder to feel love on those days. So I think it is a good way to remind them that there is still love,” Norton said.

Sophomore Dominick Belmont, a first year member of the club, is looking forward to the idea of giving back to the community.

“I think it’s a good way to just have some fun making something homemade, but it’s also really nice for the seniors we are sending cards to, so they can feel appreciated by the students,” Belmont said.

Parr is extremely proud of the leadership she has been seeing in her students and is looking forward to giving back to the community.

She said she hopes the French Club can “take away the values I hold and I would love to see them understand the importance of giving back to the community and doing things for our community. Making someone else’s day even though you don’t know them. I think just knowing that they have the power to do that is great,” Parr said.

The project was created by Norton, who has a grandpa that lives at The Lakes senior living home. Every year, the French Club does a project to give back to the community, but they have lost connections to some of the places they used to volunteer with former presidents graduating. She is clearly very passionate about her leadership role in the club and said this project is one of the things she has looked forward to the most with this club because she values kindness and shows people that they are loved.

In addition to helping others, French Club has also created many new friendships among members and created a sense of community among students.

“I’ve seen a lot of friendships develop and form out of the club. It’s also really fun to watch everybody learn something new about one of the French cultures that exist. And so it’s kind of fun to watch everybody learn about the cultures, plural, that make up the French-speaking world. So that’s kind of what we focus on, is more of those cultural pieces,” Parr said.

It’s safe to say that the French Club understands what community means to them and hopes that others can learn from them as well.