Image of a card Ania created

Amid Chaos, Confusion and Change, Expressions of Gratitude

Ania Krzyzanska, Yroswell Street Team Member
Friday, October 30, 2020

So many things changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses shut down, people lost their jobs or were sent to work from home, and all schools closed. A few months into online learning, I was sorting through the many emails I hadn’t read and decided it was finally time to do something with them.

I opened one about a service opportunity to make cards for people who requested them, to provide comfort during the pandemic. I thought it would be fun, and I wanted to do it, but I quickly realized the email was over a month old and most of the requests had likely been filled.

Still, I was left with a feeling of wanting to do something to give back to the community. Then I realized that as a member of the Yroswell Street Team, I could easily organize something to thank the hospital workers at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center for their service to all the patients and their families during such a challenging time.

With the chaos, confusion and rapid change surrounding this pandemic, medical workers were one of the few groups of people who had no choice but to continue going to work just as they did every other day. They never got a break. If anything, work became harder and more frightening.

I decided that making thank-you cards for them would be an easy way to show our gratitude for their hard work and dedication. I contacted my Yroswell coordinator, Mary Kate, and she was completely on board. After finishing my exams, I got an address where people could mail the cards, and then I sent an email to everyone in my school. I got a lot of responses and have been making a lot of cards myself.

Hopefully the Roswell Park clinical staff will have a lot of thank-you cards to let them know how much we appreciate what they do!