Cardz for Kidz! Uplifting Spirits, One Card at a Time: July 2016

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Solemnly Swear

'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?'
'I do'

With this post we’re giving away the punchline in the beginning, but we’re making a promise… That we might regret later! We promise that we’ll post pictures on at least one of our social sites of the cards that we receive from the different groups and/or independent artists. Seeing it from our perspective, we get thousands of cards each quarter. Often people don’t sign their names on the cards and the vast majority of people do not sign what group they’re a part of, but no matter what we'll try. Here’s a special situation.

Originally the purpose of posting the Top 10 cards per event was to help us remember where the cards came from. Since we make a big deal about inviting the top artists to come to Lurie Children's Hospital to play games with patients, after the judge selected the OVERALL Top 10 we could just look through our Top 10 cards per event album on Facebook and find those cards. Then we contact our point person and work to get a hold of those artists.

Now, based on our promise, we can work together to make sure those pictures have a dual meaning. First, as mentioned, we’ll be able to find the artists at the end of the quarter. Second, for your sake, you’ll be able to tell if the person running your event actually sent the cards, Seal the Deal.

Thankfully, we saw some pictures people posted on Instagram and other sites about their cards. We double checked our records and noticed that we never got cards from that group. Then there’s another time where we recall we checked in with a group because we happened to be in the area. They confirmed they happened to have just made some cards. Turns out it was 150+ cards that were for a holiday that passed a couple months ago.

But, we do want to make it clear that we understand it’s a bit harder to host an event and we’re very grateful. We’re always trying to ease the process (e.g. put together a sheet that has links to Amazon where you can purchase the art supplies).

Even more importantly, we work to make sure that the people who have helped get the events up and running at the different groups get the first choice on whether or not they’d like to attend the Cardz WITH Kidz event if their group makes 1000+ cards.

Thanks again, Trevor!

All in all, we’re thankful for everyone who steps up to take the lead on hosting an event with their friends, coworkers and or just themselves. We understand depending on the size, prepping for the first one can be at times a bit intimidating. But, we know that it is A LOT of fun and very rewarding to participate in Cardz for Kidz! since you get to use markers and glitter pens AND know you’re impacting a child. In order to help make sure the second part stays true, we SOLEMNLY SWEAR to do everything possible to post pictures of cards we receive whether or not there’s enough to post a Top 10. Actually, to make it even more official, we pinky promise we will! Here's an example-

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

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Socially Connected

Recently, our founder and Director of Strategic Outreach were discussing how Cardz for Kidz! needs to expand our social presence. For that, the Director connected with some of his personal contacts and learned that Snapchat was rapidly expanding and that we were missing out on a lot of potential connections by not having a presence there.

Here are our current sites:

Then, of course, we have to modify our website at least once a quarter based on the Participants tab. For some insider information, one tool we use to reduce the time needed to stay connected is Hootsuite. The benefit is that we are able to post on Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all through Hootsuite.

Similar to Instagram, we don’t think we’d be able to simply schedule posting of videos in the evening to post the next day if we decide to use Snapchat. No matter what, if staying SOCIALLY CONNECTED by creating a Snapchat account will help us create more smiles, we’ll get to work. Keep an eye out on our other social sites and website for an announcement for Snapchat.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

True Princess

Here we go again… Some more 100% open and honesty. To tell you the truth, if someone read all our blog posts, they’d know EVERYTHING about ANYTHING related to Cardz for Kidz!. Unfortunately, when we were checking the viewership, we noticed that not too many people have seen the posts. Either way we’re going to keep at it and keep our fingers crossed that someone special will see one of our special posts…..Maybe this one!

More honesty. If you think about it, it probably should be a BIG deal if your card gets selected into the OVERALL Top 10. For example, in Q2 2016, we received over 2,500 cards. Those came from groups ranging from Girlson the Run in Alaska to AAFCS in Alabama. We receive some AMAZING cards from universities, creative agencies, and retired educators. If you can say, “Even with all that, I made it in the OVERALL Top 10, was voted into the Top 3 ,AND was invited to come to deliver my card to a patient”, that’d be impressive.

Now, here’s another way you can help… Bald Disney princesses. If you make a quality card with bald Disney princesses on card stock, we promise we’ll hold your card to the final round. We work with children with all kinds of disorders ranging from real bad colds to cancer and we’re not showing favoritism. We think each illness is tough and each child deserves a card. But, we’re willing to help more if you help uplift a pediatric cancer patient.

It’s unfortunate. While we were looking for this picture, again, we saw it was on a blog post where someone wrote how horrible it is and how they hated it. We read through it a bit more and the second reason why was that the author felt people were just thinking, ‘That’s a cute pic, it’s a shame people have cancer’ and moving on. Based on our request, that won’t be true. You’ll actually be taking the time to make an uplifting card for a disheartened child rather than simply commenting on a picture. Therefore, you’ll be making a difference. In addition, at the end of the post, a couple of women who had cancer commented on how they loved this picture. With that in mind you’re helping out.

Now, we’d love it if there’s someone who could make at least two of these cards. One of them will be set aside and automatically put into the running for the OVERALL Top 10. Sorry, it’ll still be the judges’ choice if it makes it. Then, please reach out to us and we’ll give you the name and you can make a card for another TRUE PRINCESS we know and we’ll send the card to her.

#TruePrincess #UpliftingSpirits

P.S. Just to clarify, our people often get confused, but our hashtag is true - Every Card Counts. It actually has a double meaning. In summary, we count where each card is coming from and where it’s going to AND since each hospital promises they’ll deliver it to a patient’s room, every card is important. We just make a big deal about the Top 10 and Top 3 artists because those people are invited to come make cards and play games during the Cardz WITH Kidz events. Don’t worry, even if your card isn’t in the Top 10, it’s still producing a smile.