Patients, staff, and donors reflect on Foundation’s holiday gift drive

01/18/22 03:20:pm

Every year, Rogers Behavioral Health Foundation hosts the “Give for a Better Day” holiday gift drive. With the help of Rogers employees, community members, and businesses, the Foundation collects unused games, toys, activity books, winter clothing, pajamas, blankets, gift cards, and other monetary gifts to give to our patients during the holidays.

This year, the Foundation was able to provide gifts for 537 adolescent and 282 adult patients, across 57 different programs, at all levels of care. These gifts help our patients by lessening anxiety and providing comfort during a difficult time in their treatment. The effects are evident, but don’t take our word for it. Read what patients and staff said about receiving the gifts:

“I have worked on Focus Adolescent for three holiday seasons now and the joy I’ve seen each year on our residents faces from the holiday gifts is one of my favorite things! These gifts make the holidays so much more special especially for the residents whose families aren’t able to visit.” – Molly, behavioral specialist

“I was sad being here over Christmas but being able to open presents with my peers on Christmas morning made me feel ‘at home’ and just made a warm and fun environment!” – Patient

“A huge THANK YOU to the Foundation and its elves in providing Christmas gifts for our residents! The residents from Cedar Ridge were pleasantly surprised to receive gifts. I saw one resident actively working on their origami this morning. They stated it was a great behavioral activation activity for them!” – OCD and Anxiety Residential Care employee

Thanks to our generous donors, we were not only able to provide presents for patients in our Wisconsin locations, but we were also able to donate program gifts, including board games and activity booklets, for the residential units and supplies for our experiential therapy department to utilize during art therapy.

Donors felt joy in making patients’ holidays a bit brighter. Hear what some of them said about their contributions to the holiday gift drive:

“Rogers Behavioral Health is an incredible organization, and this is a great way to help the patients in treatment.” – Michele S., individual donor

“[We have a] strong belief in Rogers’ mission.” – Bob Olson, T-Lon Products Inc.

“We invited our company to participate in our True Blue Efforts to support Rogers Behavioral Health with a toy drive. We decorated a box for the holidays that we kept in our front lobby, and people donated toys or money toward our event.” – Kelly Frank, MSI General

Employees also donated, and in a recent blog they shared why they believe in giving back.

Interested in getting involved next year? The Foundation will begin collecting donations in November 2022. For more information on how you can help Rogers’ patients through the annual holiday gift drive, email Linda.Schieble@rogersbh.org.