PLANTING A FRIENDSHIP ONE PETUNIA AT A TIME

For as long as she can remember, 9-year-old Jessica Yarbro watched as elderly neighbor Opal Perkins swept her driveway and tended her flower gardens.

Jessica and her young friends liked visiting with the kindly neighbor, who always had a friendly word for the youngsters.

But this spring, Opal hasn't been sweeping the driveway or tending her gardens. She was in the hospital for several months. As flowers started blooming around the neighborhood, Jessica began to worry about Opal. She wouldn't be able to plant her beloved petunias and marigolds. The neighborhood wouldn't seem the same without blossoms at Opal's.

"I thought of getting some flowers for her and planting them in her flower boxes," said Jessica, a third-grader at Clippard Elementary School.

She took the dollars saved in her little backpack purse and talked her mother into driving her to the store. "I picked out the flowers, and I had to have a little more money so my mom helped," Jessica said.

With flowers and trowels in hand, Jessica and her friends headed next door and planted a greeting for Opal when she returned from the hospital.

"I just wanted her to see flowers when she got home," Jessica said. She said the good deed made her feel so good she is thinking of other good deeds to perform.

"My mom said Opal probably won't be able to sweep her driveway like she used to," Jessica said. "I think maybe we can do it for her. Do you think she would like that?"

Perkins, a longtime volunteer at St. Francis Medical Center, was delighted and quite surprised to find flowers growing in her planters.

"I didn't know where they came from," she said. "It really was a surprise."

Perkins said she enjoys visiting with Jessica on the lawn, but never dreamed the youngster would think of a welcome home present.

"Wasn't that sweet," she said. "To think, I have a neighbor that thoughtful and kind to me."