You'd be Amazed

We asked a couple groups why they participate in Cardz for Kidz!. The majority of respondents highlighted how fun it was or how much they loved seeing the impact we had on disheartened children.

There were some people who are invited to hand deliver their cards during the Cardz WITH Kidz event at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s hospital in Chicago. The honor usually goes to the top artists and/or vital contributors who get to hand deliver their cards to children in the PLAYROOM at Lurie. Here’s a potential quote that we’ll say during our next event!

“Hi all, we need your help! This past quarter we received a total of 1,841 CARDS and here are the OVERALL TOP 10. We set it up so people vote for the Top 10, but we feel you are experts, so we want you to pick your ULTIMATE favorite.”

The children get excited, look through the cards and they pick their favorites. Then, we tell them since they’re V.I.P. (Very Important Patient/Person) they get to keep the card! Now that’s the tough part! J  It’s hard to tell who’s more excited - the kid who gets to keep the card or the artist who just had his/her card selected. Either way we get to take a picture of the two of them together.

One thing we strive is to make Cardz for Kidz! as easy as possible for everyone besides us. That means we make sure that the hospitals don’t have to send us pictures of them delivering the pictures since that’d require a lot of paperwork on their end. Therefore, all the pics you see of kids holding cards are kids from the Playroom at Lurie or C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition, we don’t charge people who are making cards anything to participate. In our dream world all the groups would select and mark the Top 10 cards from their event, but we don’t push it!

Since some of the “staff” at Cardz for Kidz! volunteer and hand deliver the cards, we get to see some of the direct expressions of kids who receive the cards in their rooms. Those patients are often the most disheartened. Some of them are in their rooms alone and others simply aren’t able to leave their rooms. With that in place, those patients are SO excited!

In our ideal world, we’d be able to invite the top artists each quarter to go “bedside” (visit patients’ rooms) with us. While we were meeting up, they’d get to decide which floor they’d like their card to go to (e.g. Cancer, Neurology, PICU, etc.). Then we’d watch them hand their card to a child. We wish. Unfortunately, hospitals are very stringent on what visitors can do – patient safety is NUMBER ONE. So, as you saw above, although artists can’t go bedside, they do get to directly interact with patients. Yet, even the artists who attend don’t know the full extent their group has made on children.

So, during your next event please remember- you’re having fun making the cards and may even be feeling competitive to make the Top 10, but YOU’D BE AMAZED if you knew the impact you’re having on patients confined to their beds. Thanks for making a difference in their lives!!!!

#YoudBeAmazed #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories check out our website, www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Love for All

During some recent visits to the hospitals, we learned some parents are put in a tough spot. We’re not 100% sure what we’d do, so we’d love to get your opinions.

We had a harder time finalizing everything during our most recent Cardz WITH Kidz event. The problem is that, at this time of year, no volunteers can come in to the hospital without having their flu shot. That definitely narrows down the number of people who are able to make cards and meet the hospital’s requirement to interact with their patients.

OK, so it’s tough for us to get the correct volunteers, but the parents’ situation is even more difficult. One of the guidelines is that no other children are allowed to go up to the patients’ room during flu season. So parents have a choice: look into watching the siblings and no longer help with the patient OR search to find a babysitter.

During our Cardz WITH Kidz in December, we saw A LOT of families who were battling with that decision. Only once before did we have a situation where our “artists” didn’t work with kids in the playroom; Mindshare’s special event in August 2013.

During the event with the Q3 2015 top artists, since there weren’t many patients in the playroom, we worked with our 3 attendees - Amanda, Jen and Nicole – to help some of the families who weren’t able to go upstairs. Thankfully these three artists helped us purchase toys and art supplies then set up a LONG table for all the families to play together.

Special thanks, although we could only get a picture of our artists with the classic firetruck (not the families they made smile), we’re thankful they were willing to donate their time and show some LOVE FOR ALL the children who are impacted by the patients’ condition.

#LoveForAll #EveryCardCounts #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories check out our website, www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

What Would We Do?

Sorry, but once again we have to go back to being 100% open and honest. We made a mistake. And our excuse…it’s your fault. :) OK maybe that was a bit drastic, but based on how everyone has been passionate and dedicated to donating their time to helping out, we assumed EVERYONE cared about Cardz for Kidz! . We were under the impression that A LOT of people were looking to volunteer their time to help this non-profit grow and impact tons of disheartened kids around the world. For example, lawyers donated SO much time to help us with ALL of our backend paperwork. So we say “it’s your fault” because, thankfully, you guys got us spoiled.

Now here’s the sad truth. As we highlighted in the Worth the Wait AND Weight blog post getting our website live was more expensive and took longer to get finalized than we thought. Also, to be open, we were under the impression that the company who helped us build it was dedicated to our cause. We also thought that after collecting the first round of payments, they would sparingly donate time to answer questions and/or make updates. Unfortunately, we’ve had to reach out to someone who’s willing to provide legal guidance since they’re charging us hundreds of dollars to make updates to the site they claimed were necessary.  In addition, they charged us over $1,000 more for our website then they originally quoted us. :(

 “CLOSER TO THE MIDDLE OF THAT” 

“WHICH I BELIEVE IT WILL”

Now we know what you’re thinking….

• “$1,000 MORE!”
• “HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS FOR UPDATES!!!”
• “But wait! You don’t charge ANYONE ANYTHING to participate”

We agree that’s all pretty shocking! Although, yes, it was over 2 years ago, we know there’s no way our non-profit would still be going strong if it wasn’t for PHD’s Big Hug event. They raised nearly $7,000 for us which covered the website and a lot of other introductory fees. Also, our friends at Google, Amazon, and Network for Good have all set up ways where employees or customers can contribute to our cause.

With that consistent support we can feel comfortable connecting with hospitals in Canada even though the shipping is a bit more expensive. Or confidently hold true to our promise and ask each hospital if they currently have a DVD player. Also, it’s OK if a larger hospital outside of the Midwest confirms they’d like to receive cards. Shipping costs will be A LOT more. Thanks to your help we can uplift those spirits.

We’re thankful for all the help you’ve provided. WHAT WOULD WE DO without you? We have NO idea, but we’re thankful for everyone who’s pitched in to help our dreams, and the kids’ dreams come true!

#WhatWouldWeDo  #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Our Specific Goals

It’s that time of year!!! Hmmm….get in shape, save a XX amount of money, put in XX amount of community service hours, OR do XX with XX% of the family. As the New Year begins, a lot of people start making promises!!!

We like to be trend setters, but this time we’re going to go with the flow and make a couple resolutions ourselves!! This year we’ll be a bit more careful! Last year, when we sent the trends, we scheduled quarter by quarter punishments. This time, we’ll just tell as many groups as possible so we’ll just be embarrassed if we don’t meet our goals! We decided to use our mission statement in order to set our goals!

Cardz for Kidz! is an organization dedicated to uplifting the spirits of hospitalized and/or traumatized children across the globe by delivering inspiring homemade cards.

1. Uplifting the Spirits – Have less than 1% of the cards be discarded based on saying ‘Get Well Soon’
2. Hospitalized and/or Traumatized – At the end of 2015, we currently we have a partnership with 28 different locations with children. Amongst those destinations, only two of them are for abused children. In 2016, we’d like to double that number and send a total of over 150 cards to children who are abused and/or orphans each quarter (all while increasing the amount of hospitals we connect with).
3.  Across the Globe – In 2015, we sent cards to FIVE different countries (USA, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, and Haiti). We’d like to increase that by two to SEVEN different countries.  
4. Homemade Cards – OK. Wow. We may have to decrease this a bit, but right now our goal is to get 7,800 cards. How did we get that? We keep track of where every card is going and where it’s coming from. From 2013 to 2014, we had an 18% increase in cards produced. Then from 2014 to 2015, there was a 24% increase. So we stuck with an additional +6% increase to 30% increase for next year. In 2015, we had approximately 6,000 cards. Ta-dah….that’s how we got the 7,800!

Regardless, our desire is to reach as many disheartened children AND solemn seniors as possible. So, we’ll always strive to get more cards, but we wanted to provide OUR SPECIFIC GOALS so we can get your help to accomplish them.

#OurSpecificGoals #NewYearResolutions #EveryCardCounts #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!