Military spouse Amy Bash helps participants make cards at the Healing Art for a Hero’s Heart event.
Among ways to boost the morale of active-duty military members are messages of support and gratitude in letters or cards. To help township library patrons do that, Healing Art For a Hero’s Heart hosted a card-making session on July 23.
Amy Bash, an artist and military spouse herself, created the organization in 2019 as a self-proclaimed passion project. Her husband, Dan, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves who was deployed to Kuwait in December 2019. She decided she wanted to learn how to send him packages.
“It’s important,” Bash noted, “especially with the world in such turmoil.”
The card-making session was designed for all ages. Bash herself sketched out several of the cards, leaving others blank for anyone who wanted to create their own image. All supplies were provided by Bash and Healing Art For a Hero’s Heart.
Designs included Christmas trees and ornaments – for holiday messages – bald eagles in Santa hats, flags, hearts, doves, stars and soldiers saluting. Maria Dybalski found painting her own card rewarding.
“It was gratifying to be able to do something as meaningful as recognizing their efforts …” she said of deployed military members. “And if it were me receiving it, I would appreciate it.”
Library participants were provided with brushes, palettes, pens, pencils, markers and watercolor paints, with Bash giving the attendees a demonstration of different water color techniques, including wet on wet and wet on dry.
Jim Gardner is a friend of Bash who helped her set up the card-making session.
“It’s a good organization to be part of, to help the military,” he noted, “because they’re forgotten about sometimes during the holidays, and it’s always nice to make things for them.”
Completed greeting cards will be sent to deployed personnel who have ties to South Jersey families in time for the winter holidays and will be distributed to all branches of the military.
Place settings were set up at the library with a flyer that offered examples of phrases and messages for the cards.
“I provide copy to help folks figure out what they want to say or how to say things,” Bash explained. “We don’t know if they’re men or women. We don’t know if they could be the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guards. We don’t know which branch eventually they’re getting to.”
Sorymar Soto was also at the card-making session.
“I think of them (the military) being away from their families and loved ones,” she related. “So it kind of makes me feel, if it was me, it would maybe be a very sad situation. So just receiving a message, even from a stranger, makes it more impactful, because it shows that people care far away.”
Cards were signed by creators, including first names and their towns of residence, so recipients can see how far their creations traveled to get to their destinations. They will also have a star from a decommissioned flag placed in them as a small gift and token of service.
Besides creating cards to raise the spirits of the actively deployed, Bash also emphasized the event as a social activity, a chance to get out and engage with others in the community.
“I love seeing all the different generations,” she said. “You’ll see grandparents with grandchildren come out. You’ll see friends. You’ll see neighbors, people didn’t even know they knew each other.”
