What is the Love for Our Elders Club and how did it get started? 

The Love for Elders Club (LFOE) is actually a local branch of the larger international organization (which is) called Love for Our Elders as well. It was founded by a guy named Jacob Kramer who is a Yale graduate, and he was inspired by his interactions with older people at senior homes to start an organization where volunteers get to write letters that get sent to seniors facing social isolation around the world. I thought it’d be really nice to have something that kind of connects students to seniors in our community who are often forgotten. 

What is Love for Our Elders’ main goal?

Our mission is to fight Indiana senior isolation through volunteers writing handwritten letters of love. Then there’s also a state branch; it’s called Indy Love for Our Elders, and so we’re basically part of that Indy branch. So basically we kind of coordinate with a lot of local community homes and we coordinate letter drop-offs and such, and have different partnerships every month. 

What has the Love for Our Elders club done so far this year? 

(The club) was actually developed very recently in 2024, although the idea has been around since 2023 or 2022, but so far we do have around 60 members as of March I think, and we have sent around at least a couple hundred letters so far, just from our school itself. But the larger Indy LFOE initiative has probably sent more than 1,000 (letters) at this point because we do have other chapters at other high schools like Brebuff or University High School.

How have students in Love for Our Elders Club contributed to the club?

Our over 60 members puts us as one of the larger clubs in this high school, and I think that a lot of our members definitely (write these letters) because they really enjoy the mission that our club provides. We do provide volunteer hours and we also have free refreshments that they can enjoy when they write letters. I think the nature of our club is also more inviting because it’s only once a month. We have a pop-up event sometime every month and it’s just for one hour, so people can come in and like write as many letters as they want.

Are there ways that other students can contribute?

We have around five to six senior facility partners for this event, so basically what happens is students can come in anytime during the day, to Pod One in the CHS library, and they can write letters of love. There’s a box we made for students to put their letters in there any time of the day, and those letters are collected and then sent to our partnering facilities. The second way they can get involved is just by attending our club meetings which we have every month on a Monday in (room) E138, and we do provide refreshments and we have all the supplies that they need. They can also follow our Instagram at @carmel.lfoe or the state organization at @indylfoe.

What has been the biggest challenge of running Love for Our Elders?

Personally, I’ve never really run an organization before; I’ve never really run a club before. I think this was a really good opportunity for me and for the members of my executive team, and a lot of their club members who are very proactive in the club. It’s been a very good opportunity to learn how collaboration can produce really great things. Especially for such a cause that is often overlooked in society, I think it’s very important for us to recognize that we as individuals hold a lot of power to change the lives of the people around us, even if it’s in a small way such as writing a letter to an elder.

What do you most enjoy about Love for Our Elders?

I run the club, so I really enjoy seeing a lot of the students writing letters, and I sometimes talk with them and they’re often very enthusiastic about their mission and they definitely enjoy what we do. I think that’s really important to realize that it wouldn’t be possible without the support and the love from so many people who really appreciate their club and really appreciate their organization, so definitely seeing and meeting new people is my favorite thing.

What do you hope to accomplish by collaborating with Key Club this month?

The intent behind collaborating with Key Club for the letter drive initiative is to introduce a lot of students who are looking to fulfill their service hour requirements or who are just looking to contribute to the community and get some recognition for that, we are trying to target that demographic as well. Those people also really tend to care about the community, so I think partnering with Key Club was a really good way to get people to know about our cause, and possibly get them interested in writing a letter.

What impact has Love for Our Elders had on the community?

We have partnerships with over 10 to 20 senior facilities that we partner with as the state branch. We’ve received a lot of very positive feedback from the people that we work with. As I stated we’ve basically donated hundreds of letters at this point, in the past half year alone. We definitely expect that number to grow a lot in the coming years. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from the seniors and the facilities we work with, and also the staff members. They’ve all been so appreciative and great to work with.