Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, but people can already buy a gift to help spread kindness and bring joy to someone who might be lonely this time of year. For six years, Halifax-based organization We Are Young has hosted a campaign where people purchase valentines that are distributed to hundreds of seniors. This year, they are partnering with Charm Diamond Centres to help meet their goal of delivering valentines to 1,500 people in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. “We work with our community partners to be those people on the ground to distribute them to seniors who could really use a pick-me-up during this time of year,” says We Are Young co-founder Katie Mahoney. The valentine package includes a heartfelt note and three kinds of hand-crafted chocolates from Rousseau Chocolatier. This year’s version includes a lavender chocolate that won silver in the “ganache flavoured with alcohol, fruit, spices and/or inclusions” category at the Academy of Chocolate Awards in London. “We also have our gorgeous heart, now that’s a two-level raspberry, so it has a raspberry caramel inside with a raspberry ganache underneath, it’s so beautiful and that’s one of the chocolates we’re featuring in our Valentine’s Day collection box. And then the third chocolate is just a very fan favourite. It is made with maple cream, Nova Scotia maple of course, it’s just really lovely,” said the chocolatier’s co-founder, Nathalie Rousseau. Mahoney adds seniors are often a generation that gets forgotten. “And especially during the winter months it means the world to them that someone is thinking of them with even a small act of kindness,” she said. “Testimonials in the past have proven time and time again how much this really means to them. And some great examples are how much emotion that this brings to them, seeing the tears in their eyes. It makes us really sad but also makes us really happy that we’re able to support them in a small way and a lot of seniors say that this is something that makes their month.” The valentine packages are $12 and can be bought online until Saturday. We Are Young says it has delivered nearly 4,800 of the packages over the last six years. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
