Seal The Deal

Thankfully so far this quarter has changed!!! As of June 5, 2015 we’ve already received 1,334 cards! For a bit we were on a downward trend (e.g. Q1 2015 – 891 cards), but after Q2 we’ll be proud to update the image on our website, www.cardzforkidz.org/donate.

But thinking about it, we only show the amount of cards we’ve RECEIVED each quarter…..not how many were made. You’d be surprised how many people MAKE cards, but never ship them. Recently here are a couple quotes from conversations and/or emails.….don’t worry we made sure they’re PG!

• “I still have cards that I need to try and get to you!!!”
• “Aww man, I keep forgetting I have to get you the cards”
• “A few months ago some of us here in the office got together to make cards and I have been holding on to them to send them to you.”

In order to prevent those types of comments, we made some changes. We’re always trying to stay behind the scenes, but we made some changes so people can easily participate. For example, we made modifications to our How-To page so you can easily see where to ship the cards.

Based on the emails and responses we’ve been receiving we know people have done the hard part- making the quality cards. Then, due to the updates to our site, we understand people can efficiently find where to send their “artwork”. Now, all we need to do is find out how to inspire participants to send the packages (aka SEAL THE DEAL).

#SealTheDeal #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!

It's Up To You

Some of our participants....

Sorry we couldn't fit all of them in one simple screenshot!

We've visited the page a bunch and we're still impressed by how many groups have pitched in to help uplift spirits. And for those logos to be on our site, we had to receive documented approval for us to use them AND receive their desired landing page! So if you look under albums portion of our Facebook page, you'll see there are even more renowned groups (e.g. Harley Davidson, Northwestern University) who have made cards.

Now one may think, "here's some small organization  that's never done a press release AND simply had a couple friends do all the paperwork....how did they connect with these groups???" Here's more 100% honesty, most of the time, we knew someone. Here are some examples:

• Google - A former coworker worked there and connected us to the head of the HR department
• LinkedIn - an old roommate worked in their Chicago office
• QuickenLoans - a friend from high school currently works there and launched their first event
• Denver Public Schools - an old neighbor is a counselor in that school district

Unfortunately we're starting to get to the end of our connections! So, in order for us to grow and continue to get more renown participants, IT'S UP TO YOU, to tell a friend or host an event. If so, just like the kids, we'll be forever thankful.

#ItsUpToYou #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!

Resonate With Kids

No No! That’s our job! As mentioned in a prior posts the individuals who “work” at Cardz for Kidz! are able to remain behind the scenes….and that’s it- we’re the only ones!!! J We thought of a couple ways that we could recognize everyone who’s helped out. First, we dedicated a whole page of our website to show how many cards each group’s made, www.cardzforkidz.org/participants!

Then as a backup plan we ask groups to take a bunch of pictures during their event so we can create a special album for them on our Facebook page.

FINALLY, even if none of that works, we can create a similar looking logo and post their cards in the Top 10 album.                                                                                                                                        

We’re hoping that with at least one of those methods every group will be recognized for participating! We thought we had it set, until Resonate slipped under the radar and this blog post is the only way we can OFFICIALLY thank them!

As of April 2015, we have received 1,544 cards from advertising agencies in Chicago. Approximately 75% of those cards have come from either a Mindshare or PHD/OMD event. One common thread between those advertising giants.....Justin at Resonate Media.

Justin reaches out to the community leads at those agencies to check to see when they’re having their next event and how he can help. Not only does that include getting snacks for the agencies, but even more importantly, making cards as well.

Here’s a quote from one of our thankful helpers at Mindshare after their event in Q1 2015:

"We made a total of 92 cards and they all look awesome!  It was a great event and Justin came in to help support and feed everyone, which we greatly appreciate."

Thinking about his participation we decided to check in to see if we could get some of Justin's background. He said, “charity is close to my heart with all I have overcome in my life, and we brainstormed a way that we could help increase the amount of cards created for these dear kids.”

When we followed up with what he liked about Cardz for Kidz! he said:

"My favorite part about helping the agencies host the event is that we stop and make time to make the cards. There are not enough hours in a day and unless you stop and make time in life or it will never get done. So this allows us to make time and by providing lunch and prizes makes it something that the agencies look for forward to."

Since we don’t know how many cards he’s made, we can’t put a logo up on our site. Also, since Resonate hasn't held a big event with a bunch of pics they don’t have an album OR a Top 10 picture. So we decided to dedicate a blog post to him to let him know his contributions RESONATE WITH KIDS.

#ResonateWithKids #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, or visit our  LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Newsworthy

Every quarter Cardz for Kidz! promises each hospital/shelter we partner with that we’ll send them a certain amount of cards. For some hospitals, based on our room to room requirement and their size, they’ve requested that we send them less than their overall hospital capacity. Some smaller hospitals updated us that they often don’t have many long term patients and have high turnover. Based on that they asked if once every 3 months, we could send more cards than they have beds.

In addition, to those preset hospital destinations we often make multiple special deliveries. This is highlighted in our mission statement.

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.

Here are some examples of the some traumatized children we reached out to:

• 235 cards in  Q4 2012 to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut after the school shooting
• 15 cards in Q2 2013 to Neighborhood Charter House School in Boston, MA after the Boston marathon bombing
• 50 cards in  Q1 2014 to Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico after the school shooting
•  Colin in Michigan, Addie in Utah, Daniel in Massachusetts all with their own disheartening conditions.

Thanks to you we even received some documented gratitude from a couple of those places.

Here are two things in common between all of those delivery locations:

1. Children were put in HORRIBLE conditions that they could not control
2. They all had at least one newspaper article or webpage explaining the tragedy

We are going to continue to keep our ears open for those type of situations, but we will continue to make sure that kids, who may not be going through a situation that’s on the front page of multiple newspapers, are still positively impacted by your cards. 

Although it may not be discussed on CNN, USA Today or other news stations, we feel that each disheartened child is NEWSWORTHY and we’d love to send independent homemade cards.

Please reach out to info@cardzforkidz.org if you know a child you’d like for us to make a special delivery for.

#Newsworthy #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!

We Remember You!

“Hmmm….I don’t know! What should we say?!?!?” That’s a quote from one of the “staff” members at Cardz for Kidz!  during a recent brainstorming session on how we can get more cards.

We’re not sure if you saw one of our last Facebook post, but Q4 2014 was our lowest production in cards in over a year. Actually if you check the date and time on the screenshot below you can see that we’ve been embarrassed to update our card per quarter count.

• Q3 2014: 1,105 cards :(
• Q4 2014: 989 cards :(

While talking to some of the board members they provided some ideas on how we could continue growing. Here were some of their ideas:

• Pre-packaging supplies. Make it EASIER for people to participate. With that people could simply go on our website, click a link and we’d send them all the art supplies. Only problem is we’d have to purchase the supplies, box them up, then ship them out. Since all “staff” at Cardz for Kidz!  are volunteers, having people dedicate that much time to our organization isn’t an option.
• Work with More Renown Hospitals. Someone suggested that we should work to partner with the major hospitals in each of the big cities. By partnering with the primary hospitals people have heard of then more groups will be interested in giving back.

Actually, if you look at this ranking, http://www.parents.com/health/doctors/best-childrens-hospitals/, we’re partnering with TWO of the Top TEN (Lurie & Mott). In addition, one hospital we work with got 70,000 cards at once.  As long as a hospital or shelter reaches out and promises to deliver cards room to room, we’ll partner with ANY hospital ANY size. Thanks to our partnership with some of the larger hospitals, we’ve been reaching out to universities in those areas; part of the strategy to expand. The only thing is the second option, to work with renowned hospitals, may misalign with one of our main hash tags, #EveryCardCounts. But we want to make it clear, we never discriminate.

Although, yes, a lot of those large hospitals would appreciate the cards, as touched on in a prior post, we believe it’s more important to focus on small hospitals who don’t get as much attention. We know we won’t be able to provide a DVD or new toy to each child at the small hospitals we work with, but at the very least we can provide a card!

We’re going to continue to focus on hospitals that may not get as much attention and/or donations. So here’s a special reminder to smaller hospitals. Although some groups may not talk of you or large companies may have never heard of you, OR you have a small number of pediatric patients, don’t worry, WE REMEMBER YOU and won’t forget!

#WeRememberYou #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!

No Thanks Needed

Here we go again….starting another blog post with more 100% honesty. Here’s an explanation of why the folks behind the scenes of Cardz for Kidz! put the work in…..return on investment. We work to make sure it’s VERY EASY for anyone and everyone to participate. We guarantee the hospitals we’ll double check EACH AND EVERY card we receive (11,089 as of 3/4/14) so all they’ll have to do is open the package and hand it to a child. Then we make sure the participants know it’s 100% FREE to participate. And, if they make cards, they can get their logo up on our site for some free PR and recognition. To try and ease the process, when we designed the website we worked with the developers to make sure potential participants could download everything they’d need, http://cardzforkidz.org/how-to. We had a discussion about how it’s okay if they make it so the Helpful Info, Supplies and Reminders were all PDFs, but it’s a must that the Slideshow can be downloaded into a PowerPoint with one click! Although we’ve put in a bunch of work to ease the process, we’re always looking for ways to make it easy and effective for people to make AND receive cards.

We’re perfectly satisfied with doing all that work and remaining behind the scenes based on the “return on investment”…..seeing hundreds of smiles! Although it’s tricky to notice because we’re always the ones holding the camera in all the pics on Facebook, thankfully we’ve been there to experience each and every smile by each child and every “artist”. We feel seeing those hundreds of smiles, receiving pics from global destinations, and receiving the thank you cards makes it clear we’re appreciated and our investments are worth it!

So, now does it make sense why we’re willing to travel and put in a BUNCH of time??? Hope so. Now, we’ll need you to help us understand why these guys were NOT disappointed. Here’s an introduction to the last three “artists” who came to make cards at Lurie:

Moving from left to right:

• Steve Thompson- from the beginning he expressed a high interest in Cardz for Kidz!. His most recent donation covered our shipping costs to 9 different hospitals this quarter!
• Barry Weinberg- Not sure if you can see it in the picture, but yes, he’s wearing a Cardz for Kidz! t-shirt. That’s because he’s been helpful behind the scenes throughout the entire process. He’s made impacts ranging from sponsoring large corporate events to making a cards in his free time.
• Arron Davis- Do you notice the logo on Barry’s shirt, our website, business cards and everywhere else? In his free time, Arron designed some options for us then after we selected our favorite, he made the official digital copy of our logo. Now it’s officially ours.

Okay so their background is pretty impressive, but what we love the most is how they were still passionate about “investing” more, even though there was no immediate “return”. Since its flu season families are not allowed to bring patients’ siblings to Lurie at all. Based on that restriction the playroom is often a bit slower on the weekends when parents will likely have to be with other siblings. On top of that several pediatric patients have potentially contagious ailments so they cannot leave their rooms.

During their trip to Lurie last Sunday only a couple kids entered the playroom at all. The kids were so young and were draped with family members so our guys were not able to interact with them much. Instead of complaining about traveling all the way to downtown Chicago ranging from out in the suburbs of Chicago to Toledo, OH these guys got to work. We worked with the Child Life staff and received a list of ALL the patients in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). These guys worked with a couple volunteers, stayed past our original 2:30-4pm time frame, and made a custom card – addressed to the individual patient – for each child in the PICU. 

Although those guys cannot provide details or describe the smiles of the recipients, we can. The children AND the nurses were VERY excited they got a card that was actually made just for them.

The kids were excited to receive the cards, and the simple thought of kids being happy to receive them, inspired our artists to put in the extra time.

Now we need you to keep your fingers crossed that we don’t burn any bridges with this post! Throughout the event we were trying to apologize that they weren’t able to interact with more kids and remind them how grateful we were, but they made it clear that there was NO THANKS NEEDED and they were happy to help. Sorry. We broke the rules. We had to officially thank you!

#NoThanksNeeded #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!

All In One

We do our best to remain 100% open and honest at ALL times. If you ever ask how much we’ve received in donations, how we’re finding hospitals, and/or if we’re SHOCKED by some of the cards the judge picks as the Top 10, we’ll definitely tell you! J

So here’s our first admission. Unfortunately….we’ve been shorting kids at Bernard Mevs. We’re supposed to send the kids in Port-au-Prince, Haiti at least 20 cards once a quarter. Therefore, in 2014 we were supposed to have sent them 80 cards….we were only able to send 36. L We tried contacting French departments at multiple universities AND we had a lead of a Haitian employee at our bank who could make cards in Creole…..but it’s been delayed.

Q1 2015 has been different and it’s All Thanks to All Terrain! We’re halfway through the quarter and we’ve already sent 23 cards to Bernard Mevs. Over the past year we’ve averaged 9 cards a quarter……we’re doing much better!

It is amazing how they were able to find creative ways to make creative cards in multiple languages. For example, based on the pictures we learned that during some of the events they had an artistic musician playing in the background. Set the mood!

The music and atmosphere were inspiring, but how they made the cards in multiple languages was even more impressive.

 

With one board they were able to help people translate some of their favorite quotes into two other languages.

Speaking of quotes, here’s proof they all had fun:

• “My favorite part of making cards is the positive impact that it has on our staff.  When people come together for the benefit of others, it always results in a positive, uplifting experience as well as a great opportunity for team building.  It also gives people an opportunity to be creative!  Everyone really enjoys the camaraderie and there is always a joyful buzz around our Cardz for Kidz! day.”
• “This is a cause I want to be a part of. Putting a smile on someone’s face is extremely rewarding and to do it for the kids who need it is priceless. Each quarter when it is time to decorate our entire office gets excited to give back. We will continue our tradition here at All Terrain for a long time!”
• “My favorite part about making the cards is seeing coworkers outside of their normal “zone” and creating fun cards for the kids to open. Seeing everyone’s creativity come out, especially while trying to write in other languages, always ends in a good laugh!”
• "My favorite part of Cardz for Kidz! is thinking about the children that will be receiving these funny cards from our company. I can only imagine the looks on some of their faces as they read our translations!”

And just in case you didn't believe us they made creative cards in those languages, here’s a pic of their Top 10 to prove it!

We’re thankful that thanks to All Terrain, we’re able to get cards in English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole ALL IN ONE place.

#AllInOne #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!