Still Enough

Once again, we’re going to be 100% open and honest. We’ve got it documented that we’ve delivered well over 20,000 cards to disheartened children or solemn seniors across the globe. With that said, we doubt that we’ve changed 20,000 lives. In fact, we can’t even 100% guarantee we’ve uplifted 20,000 spirits…..with that it’s more or of a 99.9%. If you think about it, even if some kids don’t enjoy their cards, some cards excite much more than one person.

 An Elsa card excited an entire family at Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

With that in mind, some may question why we make such a big deal about our other main hash tag, #EveryCardCounts. Why do we spend the time to calculate how many cards each group makes and remind the group how many smiles they create? The first reason: its all first person!

We work with each hospital and shelter we partner with to let them know we understand all about HIPAA, patient and child protection/privacy laws. We tell them that our goal is to make it as EASY as possible for them to receive cards. It’d be a dream come true, if more hospitals were like Franciscan Hospital in MA and tweeted or sent pictures, but we won’t put any pressure on them. With that in mind, the majority of the pictures you see of patients in their rooms with their cards are all taken by “staff” at Cardz for Kidz!. So, when we highlight that your cards are helping kids and their families, it’s not simply hearsay. It’s not simply an estimate. It’s something we’ve experienced. 

We’ve seen the smiles. We’ve seen the tears of joy.

Although we’re only 99.9% sure we’ve uplifted over 20,000 spirits due to your work, based on these smiles, we think that’s STILL ENOUGH….for now!

#StillEnough #UpliftingSpirits

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!

Our Hashtag is Calling

Based on the amount of followers we have on Instagram, we understand not everyone’s seen our hashtags, so we want to provide you some of our must have hashtags for that social site-

Hashtag: “A hashtag is a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content.” (Wikipedia)

One of the things that we like about Instagram is that we’re able to use a lot more hashtags compared to Twitter. If you look at some of our original posts, we simply had a couple hashtags and weren’t getting many likes or comments. We thought of some on our own, but also asked others for some insight on what we could use (e.g. @thefarwoods & @exit21nemesis575).  Since we use so many, we wanted to briefly explain why we use some of them for the majority of the posts:

• #UpliftingSpirits- need we say more? That’s part of our mission statement* and it will always be our main goal. We’re trying to uplift the spirits of the disheartened children, but also encourage the people who are making the cards. This hashtag isn’t necessarily for trying to get more followers or likes, but simply trying to convey what we believe.
• #EveryCardCounts – another key theme we’ve touched on. As discussed in a couple prior posts, there’s a double meaning. First, all the cards are delivered room to room so each card is important. Then we track where all the cards are coming from, so we tally how many cards each group has made. This is another hashtag that’s nearly exclusive to us.
• #CardsforKids – this hashtag is something that we primarily use on Instagram. As mentioned in the Last Letter blog post, we understand that a lot of people who participate in our events may not know they’re participating in Cardz for Kidz! events. With that in mind, we’re using this to help connect with people who are simply interested in making cards for children.
• #VolunteeringIsFun – a win-win situation. That’s one of our goals. We want to make sure that participating in Cardz for Kidz! is something people look forward to. We’re using this so people who enjoy volunteering and are looking for other fun volunteering events can easily find us.
• #MakingADifference & #MakingSmiles – we grouped the two of these together since they’re a bit similar. We feel that based on taking the time to make these encouraging cards you’re making a difference in the lives of families by helping them smile during some of their most difficult times!
• #DoGoodFeelGood – we align with both parts of the hashtag. By participating and making these cards for disheartened children we know you’re definitely “doing good” and the benefit of joining in and participating in Cardz for Kidz! is something you can “feel good” about!
• #HomemadeCards & #HandmadeCards – both of these are pretty simple. We’re all about trying to find people who are passionate about making cards from scratch!!
• #EncourageOneAnother – since we’re primarily encouraging groups to work together we feel that participating in Cardz for Kidz! helps everyone. Not only are you uplifting kids, but you’re encouraging your friends, coworkers, classmates, and/or family to do something positive!
• #HelpingKids – that’s #1. Although some folks say we may be forgetting the fact that we’re sending cards to ‘solemn seniors’, #CardzFROMKidz, but still we feel that whether kids are making cards or receiving cards we’re helping kids either learn to give back or uplifting their spirits if they’re in the hospital.
• #ArtsAndCrafts – with this one we’re working to find people and groups who are interested in making homemade artwork and crafty projects.
• #SpecialNeedsKids – this was more recently added and it’s used to include that we’re reaching out to kids who have any kind of special need. We’re not going to refer to them as disabled, handicapped, but just referring to them as special.

Hopefully, when people start to look through Instagram or if we have enough room, on Twitter or Facebook, they’ll start to see we’re talking about or posting pictures of things others care about. If you look at each Instagram post, you’ll see they’re all pretty long, but you’ll never see some of the standard hashtags of #like4like or #follow4follow. We’re not simply trying to get fans, but we’re trying to get cards!

We’ve learned that people aren’t necessarily going to start following us based on our hashtags (still less than 350), but hopefully they’ll realize that we’re thinking about similar things and understand that OUR HASHTAG is CALLING - we have similar passion points!

#OurHashtagIsCalling #UpliftingSpirits

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!

*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.