We've Graduated

How? That’s a question we get a bunch. Usually it’s….

• How can we join in and make cards?
• How can my hospital start receiving cards?
• How do we get our logo on your site?

…but, for the very first time, we got a new question, how can I become an intern and help even more? Here’s a story from our new intern, Zachary Paez, about what inspired him to start helping Cardz for Kidz! in a new way.

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A few years ago, after moving off to college, I started slowly suffering from more and more seemingly unrelated symptoms of an unknown illness. About a year and a half passed with no real understanding of what was happening, climaxing in a trip to the ER when blood work came back showing I had iron levels roughly a third of what they should be. From that point on I spent a lot of time checked into the hospital, having tests done and being laid up with my health continuing to deteriorate. Coming from an athletic background, this shift in my entire lifestyle was an immeasurably difficult issue with which to deal, but it was made more difficult by the sense of loneliness within the situation; Without even having my doctors know what was wrong with me I had no one to share in my troubles and no others going through the same situation. Fortunately, a diagnosis was reached before too much longer and I've slowly been able to wean away from the hospital, but the experience left me wanting to do something for people in similar situations. I switched my major with the intention to somehow give back to other people who have to spend time there, so the opportunity to work with Cardz for Kidz! is a fantastic opportunity and experience. A simple gesture from somebody to show you you're not alone and that you're thought of makes all the difference when you have to spend time in the hospital and to have them hand delivered to the children is something special.

The opportunity to work with and help such a caring organization means a lot to me personally.

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We’re still shocked at how we’ve been growing! Just a couple years ago, we still spelled our name with S’s rather than Z’s. Less than 5 years ago, 100% of Cardz for Kidz!’s Facebook fans were friends of the founders.

But now, WE’VE GRADUATED from our early days and even have an intern who’s helping us impact more lives! Please let us know if you're interested in helping out too.

Thanks to Zakk, we can’t wait to see all the fun stuff we’ll be able to showcase for 2016!

Piece of Paper

As discussed last week, this blog post will be in first person as well; Ike, Founder of Cardz for Kidz!
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One piece of paper.

Worthless, right? I mean, you always see those signs and clippings about the thousands of trees that are cut down to make paper. Signs that show how/why it’s important we recycle since so much paper is thrown away and not important. While that’s all true, but we have to remember that some pieces of paper are cherished and kept forever.

A couple years ago I wrote the blog post about meeting “Penelope” at Mott Children’s Hospital and how that was uplifting. The post ended with some images from the inspirational wall of my place out in Chicago. The first image was the clipping of a news article, (piece of paper) from the Ann Arbor News. It’s all about a bowler, Becky Arend, who nearly set records after having brain surgery.

Here’s one of my recent Facebook post that describes why this piece of paper is so valuable to me and its impact.

As I touched on in that Facebook post, thankfully, I was able to set up a meeting with Becky during a real tough time. It was great because we met up right after her league. We connected on all kinds of interesting stories and she told me that although it’s 10+ years old, she still has a copy of the article too. I wonder if it’s framed and laminated like mine!! J Either way, I’m thankful we were able to meet up and that I got her autograph.

Who knows? With the amount of effort you put into your piece of paper, aka homemade card, you may provide long term encouragement. Although we can’t guarantee a child is going to laminate your card, frame it and use Google to find you in order to get your autograph, we can guarantee that what may seem like just a PIECE OF PAPER (simply 1 of 10000+ cards we’ve shipped) may be what encourages a child for years.

#PieceOfPaper #UpliftingSpirits

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

Today's Heroes

Now that the Secret’s Out, I’m going to share these next two blogs in first person – Ike Nwankwo. These two posts will explain what I know Cardz for Kidz! is doing, as well as some potential impacts. Don’t worry, third party will return soon! J

Heroes. Brave. Strong. Smart | Criminal. Corrupt. Racist | Caring. Artistic….

We were trying to think of some words that people often use to describe police officers. Growing up in Ann Arbor, MI and thanks to Officer Ehnis and my D.A.R.E. class, my impression of police officers would be described with the first four words. On top of that, one of our long time family friends was a police officer as well. They were my personal heroes.

A couple years ago I moved away from Chicago back to Michigan for a job. Although I’m back in Chicago (the big C) all the time due to the little c’s (clients, condo, cardz for kidz, comrades), I still only get little glimpses of what’s taking place in the city that I love. Unfortunately, a couple of those glimpses have been pretty negative recently. I saw clips in the news about officers who shot and killed unarmed black men in the city. Although it took place years ago, from what I understand the video was just released. I don’t have all the details on those stories so I don’t know for sure what happened, but I do know those images were pretty shocking. Also, the coverage of police brutality is more frequent in the news and is continually growing across the country. With all of that going on, there are several people who agree with the middle three words or phrases.

However, in amidst of all this, there are some officers making a positive impact. Now, something I know for sure….some officers can best be described by the last two adjectives; Caring and Artistic. And this gentleman from Michigan is not simply claiming those aspects based on news story, but due to my personal experience with officers and Cardz for Kidz!.

We chatted about it during some prior posts, but Q4 2015 was a record setting quarter! Thanks to groups such as Lycee Francais de Chicago, AICPA, Morningstar, DePaul University, and QuickenLoans, we received a total of 2,498 cards. If you do the math that’s like receiving over 25 cards a day! As you can imagine the stakes were up real high in order to get into the coveted Top 10. Thankfully this quarter we were able to connect with the OFFICIAL judge and she worked with her husband to narrow down the 100 or so final cards to 10. There were discussions about which Minion cards they should keep. How many cards one specific artists should have. If they should limit the amount of animal cards. But one thing that wasn’t discussed was the super hero card that was made by the Lynwood Police Department.

“You’re much stronger than you think you are. Remember that bravery is not the lack of fear. But the ability to move forward in spite of fear. The brave men and women of the Lynwood Police Department stand beside you and your bravery. Be Brave.”

As soon as she saw the card, our official judge immediately moved it to her “keep” pile–bypassing even the “Let me get Ken’s opinion/perspective” pile. And as you can see with the Top 10, Q4 2015 was the perfect combination of quality and quantity.

From what we were told by the police department, one gentleman was the artist behind the Captain America image on the front. Then they all worked together and made sure everyone signed the inside of the card, before placing a picture of the whole force inside, too.

As if that wasn’t enough, they did even more: the department came to Lurie Children’s Hospital and interacted with patients! You’d be surprised how hard it is to get a hold of the top artists AND get them to come to Lurie to deliver their cards during a Cardz WITH Kidz! event. (Seemed like in Q4 2015 it was a bit more difficult… We could not get a hold of our contact at the company that had 4 of the Top 10 cards. Another one of the artists stated that the weekend didn’t work for them. Thinking back, maybe we should have expected people might to be too busy on Valentine’s Day rather than simply thinking of coming to make cards! J)

We reached out a couple different ways and were thankfully able to get a hold of Deputy Chief Terrence Shubert. He then connected us to Josh Watson, the artists who drew the Captain America image on the front. They both agreed to drive to Chicago on Sunday, February 14, to personally come uplift the spirits of children and families who could not leave the hospital on Valentine’s Day.

Similar to every stereotype and proclamation, I can’t say ALL officers are the last two adjectives: Caring. Artistic. However, I can say that I’m thankful I got to meet TODAY’S HEROS and work with some officers in the Lynwood Police Department who definitely are caring and very artistic!

#TodaysHeroes #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!

Increased Awareness

Some more honesty. As discussed in a prior post, some of the original Cardz for Kidz! members have marketing degrees. Now, here’s something we learned in one of our classes. There are primarily 3 different types of marketing campaigns. First, there are some campaigns that try to increase AWARENESS – simply get more people to know your brand/product. Others that are TRANSACTIONAL or action based – trying to drive action ranging from purchasing a product to downloading new software. Finally, there are some campaigns that are referred to as LOYALTY campaigns. These initiatives are dedicated to strengthening the connection between consumers and a brand. Originally, when we officially became Cardz for Kidz!, we were strictly focused on the last two initiatives - trying to get new groups to host events and retain groups who have participated in the past.

If you need confirmation, just check out the website and you’ll see our order:

1. Participants - Loyalty
2. How To - Transactional
3. Donate – N/A
4. About Us – Awareness
5. Contact Us – All of the Above

For the ‘Loyalty’ part we made sure that the Participants tab was one of the first section anyone sees. We’re using the second meaning of one of our main hashtags, #EveryCardCounts[1]. We figured this way groups know they’re being recognized and other people can see how many cards they have created. We thought this might increase competition between groups and they may be interested in continually making more cards – seeing their numbers rise. Also, we thought this would be a way to get more groups to Stream It[2].

Next for the ‘Transactional’ part, we made sure that EVERYTHING anyone would need to start an event is on our site. If you check out the How To page, you’ll see a lot of information and the exact steps you need to do in order to host an event. This ranges from how to set up an event, where to send the cards, and where to send pictures. And since we wanted to make things even more efficient, we have files people can view or download that show what art supplies you need, little signs that can be placed on the tables, as well as PowerPoint that can be played in the background.

Based on missing our 2015 goals, we have modified our approach. Originally, we thought simply having more people know about our organization was not helping disheartened children at all. Although it may be impressive if we had 10,000+ fans, that would not mean we would consistently have 10,000+ cards. After things fell through and we weren’t able to meet our 2015 goal, we had to stick to our promise and tell personal stories to get more people to the website and to start telling others. Although this wouldn’t necessarily get more cards, we’re hoping that more people would begin to talk. Also, we have reached out to a couple different newspapers and stations to try to improve awareness that way. In addition to that, we got small stickers that can be placed on the back of cards.

Some members of the board have been recommending this for a while, but what actually led to the follow-through was an incident at Lurie Children’s Hospital. When we handed a card to a child, their mother asked where they were from. We started to explain and she followed by saying, it’d be nice if it said it somewhere. That request finally got us going, we got the stickers and have also been asking the different leaders for each group to have all their participants not only sign their name, but add their city and/or group as well. It’s a bit hard to see on the actual cards, but Girl Scouts Troop 13 did a wonderful job since a lot of the girls wrote names, group, cities AND troop number! Thankfully, they added all of that without interrupting the layout of the cards.

If it all works out, the families who receive the cards will now know, or be more aware, of where their cards are coming from. We’re hoping that everyone’s INCREASED AWARENESS and our consistent gratitude inspires more groups to either start hosting events or continually participate in uplifting spirits. 

#IncreasedAwareness #UpliftingSpirits

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

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[1] First part is since each card is delivered room to room a child will receive each card, so every card counts.

[2] Independently host Cardz for Kidz! events without any member of the organization checking in to see if they are still interested and/or requesting cards for a special event.

The Michigan Difference

It will take A LOT for anyone to get close to DePaul University in terms of the wide variety of departments that have hosted an event. Currently, it includes special student groups, athletics, modern language departments, alumni, and more! Thinking about it, it’s no wonder they’ve made 1000+ cards (1,164 to be exact)! #EveryCardCounts

DePaul University has had an array of groups participating, but we’re also impressed by the variety of ways the University of Michigan has also joined in. Similar to how a lot of DePaul’s connections were sparked by our founders (DePaul alumni), Michigan’s contributions were led by  Dr. Katherine Burson, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business.

Here’s some background. Did you read the post where we talked about what we wanted to become WHEN WE GROW UP? In that post, the ‘protagonist’ (aka founder of Cardz for Kidz!) described studying for exams a month after going through brain surgery. The goal of that post was to show how hard it is for students to go through difficult health conditions AND still do “well” in school. Therefore, when we grow up, we’d love it if we were able to help provide scholarships for kids who’ve gone through difficult physical conditions. 

As mentioned in the post, the student was having trouble remembering a lot of the simple phrases and themes in marketing. That all took place in a Marketing 300 course that was taught by Professor Burson at the Ross School of Business. The University of Michigan had a special setup where students with disabilities got extra time on the exam. Since it was his first time going through the procedure, he didn’t reach out in time and unfortunately wasn’t able to find a time that worked with Dr. Burson to take the exam at another time. Once the exam started he began working, trying to remind himself of the 4 P’s, STP, types of targeting, etc. After a bit of frustration, he sighed popped his head up to the sky, and on his way down, he made eye contact with Dr. Burson. She motioned for him to get his stuff then come down. Turns out she found a grad student to sit with him during the beginning of the exam while she was with the other students then later came and sat with him for the extra time. One could say, her helping a student helped inspire our desire to help future college students.

Next Cardz for Kidz! has consistently been striving for ways to connect with more universities. This ranges from alumni to current students. We’re always reaching out to friends and others to see if they have ideas on what we need to do to expand. Thankfully, there was one time when we didn’t need to do that. It was real exciting/shocking when Dr. Burson reached out and told us she’d like for her students to create and present new marketing plans to us. Here are a couple quick snapshots of their PowerPoints.

Those recommendations were used to make our next connection via Dr. Burson, Lauren Nopar, and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. Dr. Burson connected Lauren and our founder a couple months ago to spark some networking. Lauren conveyed that Dr. Burson insisted that she check out the Cardz for Kidz! social pages and website before she reached out. Thankfully, Lauren followed her recommendations and at the end of the chat about networking, they discussed how her sorority could participate. After their first event, they created a total of 151 cards AND already scheduled a date to make their next set of cards.

Currently, the University of Michigan, primarily thanks to Dr. Burson and the marketing department, has impacted approximately 180 patients. Although we appreciate cards and gifts from ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE, we’re thankful we experienced THE MICHIGAN DIFFERENCE; producing cards AND creating marketing strategies. Thanks for your contributions.

#TheMichiganDifference #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!

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!