On Valentine’s Day, Cupid Crew Delivers Roses — and Connection — to Older Adults

Each Valentine’s Day,  Wish of a Lifetime’s Cupid Crew volunteers deliver roses and cards to residents of nursing homes and assisted living centers in their communities.

Beginning in 2014 with a few dozen volunteers delivering a few thousand flowers to older adults in Denver, the effort has grown into a nationwide program. More than 200,000 Cupid Crew volunteers have now delivered more than a million roses (thorns removed) and Valentine’s Day cards to older adults in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The Cupid Crew is part of Wish of a Lifetime from AARP, which helps older adults fulfill lifelong dreams.

“Our goal was to find a way to provide love and connection to older adults on Valentine’s Day, which is a really isolating day for an already very isolated demographic,” says Jared Bloomfield,  director of field programs at Wish of a Lifetime. Both programs work to provide older adults a sense of community. According to a recent AARP study, 40 percent of older adults report feeling lonely. 

For Jake Martinez, 66, who lives in senior housing in Denver, a Cupid Crew visit last Valentine’s Day was a welcome surprise. He accepted the red rose and card, then invited the Cupid Crew into his apartment. There, the volunteers saw that Martinez had posters of Denver’s football team, the Broncos, on every wall. Martinez says he was excited to share pictures of his favorite player, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.  Martinez has been a Broncos fan since he was 9 years old, he says, and of all the players, “John was always my idol.”

The encounter doesn’t surprise Bloomfield. Opening your door to a rose, he says, is “the best icebreaker in the world.”

A rose that led to a wish

Cupid Crew volunteers mentioned Martinez and his love for the Broncos to the Wish of Lifetime team as a good candidate for a wish. Martinez, a dedicated fan, is known locally as “the Broncos man” for his regular visits to Denver’s downtown mall wearing one of the 20 Broncos jerseys he owns. He often pushes a cart full of his personal Broncos memorabilia.

Last December, as part of Wish of a Lifetime’s program, Martinez got to go watch the Broncos take on the Jacksonville Jaguars. “We lost,” he says. “We had a good time at that game, but at the last minute they couldn’t pull it out.”