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As soon as she noticed the local craft supply stores had started to stock spring-time decorations shaped like chicks, bunnies and eggs, Forty Fort resident Carol Aten, 77, brought home a few bagfuls.
“I call them doo-dads,” she said on Thursday afternoon as she worked on pulling the adhesive backing from a fluffly white rabbit.
Her goal is to make 200 Easter cards for veterans who are hospitalized or residents of community living centers.
“My late husband (A. Charles Aten) was in the Army and they did a nice service at his funeral,” she said, explaining her appreciation for military folks. “I had a lot of classmates and friends in the service, too.”
“Isn’t that beautiful?” she said, holding up a lacy design, one of several craft supplies she adds to blank cards to personalize them.
“Every one is different,” she said of the cards, to which she adds the toy-like chicks and bunnies along with such messages as “You are my sunshine,” “Hello friend” or, simply “Hugs” or “Love.”
This is the latest endeavor for Aten, who recently finished 60 hand-made Valentines for a similar project.
“I’m a fast worker,” she said, noting she might spend 10 minutes on each card.
“Some times I’m up till 1 o’clock in the morning,” she said. “I have my cup of coffee and I start making my cards.”
“Too many people are in nursing homes and don’t have anybody to come see them,” she said, explaining that’s her motivation for wanting to spread “some good will” with her handicrafts.
A retiree who most recently worked as a part-time receptionist, Aten considers herself fortunate. “I have my health,” she said. “I have my three wonderful kids, my grandchildren, my sisters and brothers and a lot of good friends.”
The last time Aten appeared in a Times Leader story, she was worried about one of her sisters, a Bernadine Franciscan nun named Sister Joelle, who was working at a high school in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria hit the island in September 2017.
Sister Joelle survived the hurricane, Aten is happy to report, and is now teaching English to immigrants in Reading, Pa.
