COLUMNIST: Keep giving cards to St. Jude's

You’ve all heard the old saying “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.”

Well, right in the middle of the stream I have to make some changes.

I met a woman upstate during the holidays that reads this column. She said at one time she saved greeting cards for St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, but had heard they no longer accepted the greeting cards. However, since recently reading I was collecting cards for that very worthwhile organization she had saved her cards for me.

I decided right then and there that I needed to check with the officials at St. Jude to see exactly what the status is. I didn’t want to be mailing boxes of cards if they couldn’t use them. I placed a call and talked directly to someone in charge of the card project. I would like to share the corrected information I have with you readers, who brought or sent me bags and boxes of cards since that column ran. Today, when I got to the office I had two big bags of cards someone had left.

The following is the current information on the Recycled Card Program: The program accepts donations of all occasion cards including religious Christmas cards year-round, excluding all Hallmark, Disney and American Greeting cards or those of specific gender as Mother, Father, Sister or Brother. The donated cards are cropped and put on blank card stock to recycle into new cards, which are then sold to customers. This program is operated by Kid’s Corporation, a program for the children at St, Jude’s Ranch to help them learn entrepreneurial skills.

According to a copy of a news article dated 1/25/2010, since the card program began anew, with three paid employees and a handful of volunteers, the Recycle Card Program had sold 788 packets, or 7,880 cards, in three months.

In addition to generating income for themselves, the young entrepreneurs at the refuge for abused, abandoned and neglected children are learning what it means to be an employee and follow workplace rules.

Veronica Hueming, community relations specialist with the program, said it is hard to find a job in this time and economic environment, so the experience with the Recycled Card Program adds to the resumes of the youth and provides them with job skills they might not have been able to obtain elsewhere.

The recycled cards are available in packets of ten as: Religious Christmas, non-Religious

Christmas, Anniversary, Birthday, Easter, Get Well, Blank Notes, Sympathy, Thanksgiving, Thank You or Assorted. The assorted collection includes four birthday, two sympathy, two notes, one anniversary and one Get Well for $10.00 per packet, postage and handling is included on all orders. I have order forms if anyone is interested.

Thank you for sharing your cards with me. I would appreciate it if you saved them all, front and back, uncut, to me and allowed me to check the ones that cannot be used. Actually, I have a paper trimmer at home and find that I can trim some (not all) to fit the 5x7 inch requirement, which I discovered during this last bitter cold and I don’t mind the extra effort one bit. I have one box ready to go and am filling another one!