DCs make holidays a season for giving
The holiday season is often a very busy time of year for DCs. Patients with winter flu symptoms, stressed from planning family gatherings or worn out from non-stop shopping, flood chiropractic offices. Yet, no matter how crammed their schedules were, in 2011, doctors across America made time to share the holiday message of giving in their offices. Understanding the real meaning of the holidays, staff and patients joined in with collections of food, warm clothing, and toys.
In New Jersey, the Association of NJ Chiropractors launched its “Baby It’s Cold Outside” program for the fifth consecutive year. The statewide campaign encouraged patients to donate unwanted winter apparel in good condition, as well as nonperishable food items to member doctors’ offices for distribution to food pantries, charities, and community organizations.
Many individual offices around the country, such as the Greenwood Health Center in Indiana, held special promotions, giving away free new patient exams in exchange for donations of hats, gloves or winter jackets.
Other chiropractic offices solicited donations of food to help feed the hungry in their communities, often offering services in return. Some, like Eric R. Carlsen, DC, of Richmond, Va., started collecting food for Thanksgiving. In just two weeks, the patients and staff at his Family Chiropractic Center collected more than 324 pounds of food and household supplies for the community.
At the same time, the Colorado Chiropractic Association donated 70 frozen turkeys to the Denver Rescue Mission for its annual Turkey Drive. Alexxa Gagner, Denver Rescue Mission director of public relations singled out the DC group for praise: “Thanks to the generosity of organizations like the Colorado Chiropractic Association, thousands of people will be fed this Thanksgiving.”
The chiropractic spirit of giving continued throughout the country well into December.
One Ohio office, Wellness Defined of Bedford, asked residents to help “Pack the PODS” storage units with food for those in need. In Dickinson, Texas, Bay Colony Chiropractic used its Facebook page to urge patients to bring donations of food. In exchange for 10 non-perishable food items, they gave donors a complimentary first visit.
Bay Colony’s Donna Sanders, DC, looked for additional opportunities to help in her community. Among the most successful was an “angel tree” she placed in the practice waiting room with the names of 42 residents of a nearby nursing home who were alone and received no visits from family. Patients eagerly signed up as “angels” to purchase much-needed and welcome gifts for these seniors. Another tree was set up for two rural area families headed by single mothers whose holiday was made brighter by the generous and caring donations collected in the office.
Other DCs realized that cash could be the best gift to give community organizations at this time of year. One office in Allen, Texas – New Directions Chiropractic – announced that for the week of Dec. 12-16, half of all office proceeds would go to provide Christmas for children in need through the Allen Community Outreach Adoption Program.
Toys and other gifts were in big demand during the season, and many chiropractic offices helped provide them through office collections or individual donations.
In Shawnee, Kansas, J.J. Schmidt, DC received local media attention when he volunteered at a community program called the “Holiday Shop,” which allows disadvantaged families to pick up donated toys and other items so they’ll have something under their tree.
Eight years ago, as a new graduate of Cleveland College, with a wife and two children to support, Dr. Schmidt had taken advantage of the program to make his own family’s holidays a bit less bleak. Now an active member of the community with a successful practice, he decided to “pay back” the organization by donating special wrapped gifts to the Shop.
“We wanted to make it exciting,” he said in a story in a local online news outlet called The De Soto Explorer. “But we wanted to show that it was not just a toy, but a gift – a piece of our heart that we wanted to give them.”
As in previous years, numerous doctors volunteered to be drop off points for the US Marine Corps Reserve’s “Toys for Tots” Program, which began in 1947 and has, so far, distributed more than 81.3 million toys valued at over $487 million.
Among chiropractic companies that took part in the season’s giving, The New Renaissance held its annual “Christmas on the Reservation” event, collecting donated items for distribution on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Colorado.
“Each office generally sticks to a theme (such as new coats, shoes, or sports equipment) and their practice members donate gifts accordingly,” TNR organizers explained. “Oddly enough, some of our smallest practices have shipped out the largest number of gifts! In the five years we have done Christmas on the Reservation, we have collected well over 50,000 presents. For the gift-giving ceremonies, many of our members travel to Montana to see the smiles and to hear the shouts of joy as each child receives his or her gifts. It’s a humbling experience that really sheds light on how good we have it.”