Date: Fri 20-Dec-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

schools-Cigna-box-of-love

Full Text:

with cuts: Montessori Kids Wrap Up Love For Cigna Clients

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

Children at the Newtown Montessori School have just completed a special

project that their teacher and a CIGNA HealthCare executive believe will bring

warmth and happiness to many elderly people.

Over the past three weeks, nearly 50 children in several grades have joined

together, working hard in their classrooms to create and wrap more than 400

"Boxes of Love."

The boxes they created are beautifully wrapped, but empty. They are destined

for people whom the children may never meet.

The following poem affixed to each one of the finished boxes, was signed by

each one of the Montessori students who helped with some stage of the project.

This is a very special gift

That you can never see.

The reason it's so special is

it's just for you from me.

Whenever you are lonely

or simply feeling blue,

you only have to hold this gift

and know I think of you.

You never can unwrap it,

please leave the ribbon tied.

Hold this box close to your heart...

It's filled with love inside.

To complete the "Boxes Of Love" project, Montessori teacher Bridie Kostecky

set up an assembly line, sitting the children down at separate work stations,

where the necessary materials, provided by CIGNA, were laid out.

The children began by unwrapping the bundles of flattened corrugated

cardboard, folding each piece into a box, then taping it shut and wrapping it.

After adding the final touches - a bow and the poem - each box was sent over

to the quality control table, where four children made last minute adjustments

or repairs.

"We fixed them if they were messy," explained Nadine Conte, as she rewrapped

one side of a box where the paper had come loose.

Miss Kostecky admitted sometimes the children surprised her during the

wrapping process.

"They decided the inside foil part [of the wrapping paper] was prettier than

the outside, so they wrapped some of the boxes that way," she said.

The finished boxes were sent Monday to CIGNA's New York City office by Federal

Express, to be shipped out by December 20 to the company's elderly clients in

the tri-state area.

The CIGNA clients who will be receiving the boxes are over 65 and have chosen

the company's managed healthcare plan over Medicare.

"We're all so excited about this project. It really touches people in a human

way," said CIGNA vice president, Karen Lerner, speaking Monday from her New

York City office.

She recalled the favorable reactions the "Boxes of Love" project elicited from

the company's advertising, sales and executive staff, when they first heard of

the undertaking.

The idea for the joint venture between Montessori and CIGNA came when the two

women, Miss Kostecky and Ms Lerner, were both enrolled in a Landmark Education

course centered on developing skills in self-expression and leadership.

They soon grew to be friends and Miss Kostecky shared the "Boxes Of Love" idea

that one of her students, Chuck Haberkorn, had learned about in his Sunday

school.

"It was all about unconditional love. We agreed that idea really fit what we

were talking about in the course," Miss Kostecky said.

After the Newtown Montessori students had created and delivered several boxes

to the town's senior citizens at Nunnawauk Meadows, Miss Kostecky and Ms

Lerner decided the idea was such a good one, they should expand it to include

CIGNA clients, with the company providing the materials and the students

providing the labor.

"We're going to enclose a letter with each box we send out," Ms Lerner said,

warning clients to read the poem carefully first.

"Don't open the boxes by mistake," Ms Lerner told them. Watch what you do, and

don't let the love out.