It was a special day Monday at Meadowlark Senior Center in Rio Rancho. Jared Conant, 4, and his father Barry Conant helped light up a lot of faces with homemade environmentally-friendly Christmas cards.

The Conants were joined by several other children in handing out more than 200 cards.

Trudy Nutt, a frequent visitor to Meadowlark, said she really enjoyed the card and her face lit up when Jared handed her a card and told her, “Merry Christmas.” Barry Conant, a program specialist for Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful, said handing out the cards is one of his favorite activities.

“Of all the things we do all year, this one strikes the most emotion in me,” Conant said. “There are so many people who don’t have someone at Christmastime and I hope this spreads a little cheer. This is the way I like to end my year.”

Conant said he goes to the schools and teaches the students the three “R’s”, which are reduce, reuse and recycle.

“We want to educate the kids on reducing the amount of resources they use and when they use resources, to recycle them or reuse them,” Conant said.

He said one of the best examples is reusing Christmas cards. Sadly, most Christmas cards, or any cards for that matter, get thrown away after a few months. So, Conant said they take the old cards, have the children cut off the back page and writer a message to a person on the backside of the cover. He said some of the children get a little creative and draw pictures.

“There is nothing better than a hug and a smile from a kid at Christmastime,” Conant said.