Monday, January 16, 2012

Acts of Kindness

We recently received an email from a wonderful nurse at INTEGRIS Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma. This is what she wrote:

This is going to sound like a strange request... but I thought it was worth a shot. I am a nurse in a pediatric ICU in Oklahoma City, OK. Recently, a local Wal-Mart has agreed to donate all of their damaged children's clothing to our unit so that our patients can have something to wear while they are in the hospital. Sadly, a lot of our patients don't have parents who stay with them or bring them clothing. I was just curious if you would be willing to donate or offer any sort of a discount for your labels so that we could label the clothing that we keep on the unit. We are finding that it is hard to know which patients are wearing the clothes we provide and which are wearing their own clothing. I thought it would be great to label the clothing with a PICU label that can withstand laundering.  I use your labels for my children's clothing at home and absolutely love them. I was going to buy some for the unit, but we probably have at least 100 items of clothing to label and that would be pricey for me. :)  Or, do you have any labels that you throw away or are damaged? Even if they didn't say PICU, we could identify it as ours by the certain type of label. I understand that this is asking a lot, so if you are not able to that is fine. I will still continue to love your company and products. :)

Thank you!
Mary P.

Needless to say, we were blown away by the resourcefulness of Mary and her department, and their willingness to go above-and-beyond to help their patients. This initiative wasn’t something they were being paid to do – they did it because they saw a need and wanted to fill it. This act of kindness may not be shouted from the rooftops, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. It is stories like this that need to be told, so that the unsung heroes in our communities can inspire and motivate us all.

We are delighted to have provided Mary’s pediatric intensive care unit with enough labels for all of their donated clothing, and we encourage you to do a small act of kindness in your neighbourhood, too. From something as simple as holding the door for a stranger, to donating your time or money to a local charity, every kindness counts!

If you have a great “acts of kindness” story that you’d like to share, please email social@oliverslabels (dot) com. We would be happy to post them on our Facebook page and here on our blog.

1 comment:

Teresa Silva said...

I'd be glad to donate the (albeit small) balance of my agent commission to defray the costs of the labels you sent to Mary P.'s pediatric unit or to send her a few more. It's not much, but it's great to help sick kids in some small way.