The 2025 P.S. I Love You Day celebration took place on February 14 at New Hyde Park Memorial High School. As it fell on the same day as Valentine’s Day, the events were targeted towards filling the day with love and appreciation for all. New Hyde Park students and staff participated in a variety of events and activities to encourage people to love others, as well as learn to love themselves and to take care of their mental health.
The origin of P.S. I Love You Day is two sisters’ experience with the loss of their father and a classmate to suicide. The sisters established the day as a celebration of spreading love to friends and family and reminder that people are never alone. P.S. I Love You Day events have a new theme every year. This year’s theme was “A Brighter Tomorrow Begins Today,” which was intended to help people collaborate and take action to better one another, so that the next day will be better than the day before.
“As counselors, we try to spread kindness and love to our students every single day. We try to emphasize that our doors are always open and that you can talk to us anytime, and I think P.S. I Love You Day really exemplifies that,” counselor Ms. Menendez said.
A similarity connecting this year to the last includes the tradition of students and staff being encouraged to wear the color purple, which symbolizes positive messages of love and acceptance. In addition, NHP’s annual bracelet making fundraiser returned. This event allowed students to spread their creativity by creating friendship bracelets for a friend or someone special.
However, despite demonstrating the same basic principles, NHP changed things up this year by introducing new activities. For example, the special education department gave out purple leis to students and staff, adding a pop of color to each outfit. The social studies teachers also handed out bingo boards to their students, which could be used to earn tokens in order to play an in-school claw machine.
NHP students and faculty have been positively impacted by the events and the message behind this year’s P.S. I Love You Day.
“P.S. I Love You Day has definitely made me stop during the day, and think about telling the people in your life how much you care about them and how much they mean to you,” social studies teacher Ms. Borgogelli-Ferraro said.
“It’s honestly a great day. I think P.S. I Love You Day is a very nice concept and it’s really creative. I’m excited for the activities we’re going to do, and I can’t wait to see what our teachers have in store for us,” eighth grader Hannah Jung said.
