Spreading Positivity with Cards 2 Warriors

Have you ever wondered how a small act of kindness can make a colossal difference in someone's life? Join us for an uplifting conversation with Dawn, the inspiring founder of "Cards to Warriors," who transitioned from a radiation therapist to an advocate for patients and caregivers. Dawn shares her heartfelt journey and the touching story behind this incredible initiative that spreads joy and support through "Happy Mail" to those battling illness. Discover the various ways to get involved, from receiving uplifting mail to joining the card crew and sending encouraging messages, and learn why staying connected and spreading positivity is so vital in challenging times.

Delve into the inner workings and challenges of the Cards to Warriors program in our second segment. Find out how participants can opt-in monthly, send and receive cards, and even find pen pals to share their journey with. Dawn sheds light on the special "yikes button" for emergencies, ensuring no one is left without a card, and discusses the importance of financial contributions to keep the program running. Hear about the evolution of the program, from its early days as ChronicWarriorsOrg to its current form, and the technical hurdles they've overcome to maintain privacy and security for participants.

Finally, we issue an exciting challenge: join the card crew and start spreading joy! Learn about the simple steps to sign up, maintain confidentiality, and create meaningful connections through personalized information. Dawn shares inspiring examples of various groups involved, from pre-med clubs to high schools, and emphasizes the importance of respecting preferences to make the card exchange special for everyone. Listen in to understand how your small act of kindness can foster friendships, strengthen community bonds, and bring immense joy to those who need it most.

Cards2Warriors.org

Cards2Warriors.org/happy-mail  (direct link to sign up)

Cards2Warriors.org/get-involved (to volunteer and send cards)

IG: @cards2warriors

FB:  @cards2warriors

Hi, Jen here! We are so glad to have you back. I want to personally thank those that have signed up with Rare Patient Voice recently. We love your support of the podcast, and this is another way that you can by signing up with Rare Patient Voice through our referral link. Remember, we're here to support you every step of the way. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Spreading Love With Cards to Warriors
• 12:21 Monthly Card Program for Warriors
• 25:19 Connecting Through Cards and Community
• 31:29 Spreading Kindness Through Cards

Transcript

Gracefully Jen: 0:08

Hi, my Spoonie Sisters, it's your host, Gracefully, Jen and I have an amazing person here for you today. This is Dawn. She is well behind the scenes all the time, has her fingers so full and all the things. Welcome Dawn, from Cards to Warriors. How are you today?

Dawn: 0:30

Hey there, jen, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm just so excited to be here and talk with you today. Hey there, jen, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm just so excited to be here and talk with you today.

Gracefully Jen: 0:37

Oh, I'm so excited too. This is something that I'm super passionate about. If people can't tell by now, I think Happy Mail is the best mail, and so I think it's really important that we share what Cards to Warriors is all about. I don't even know where to begin, so I might just let you take over and tell us what kind of sparked your interest in starting this.

Dawn: 0:57

You know. So I'll start out. I'll just start saying that by trade, I'm a radiation therapist, so I treated cancer patients forever, never thinking I was going to be on the other side of it and have a kid with illness. So, having been through both sides of the journey, through the course of giving back and doing things for others and finding ways to help, we just realized that nothing good comes in the mail when you live with an illness. There's plenty of bills and plenty of insurance statements and collection notices, and there is just a there is no happy mail notices, and there is just a there is no happy mail. And so it just evolved into what it is today, which is the Cards to Warriors program happy mail and mail of support during those really rough times.

Gracefully Jen: 1:42

And you know for listeners, let's also try to explain. There's two different ways that people can either get involved or receive cards. So do you want to explain that?

Dawn: 1:55

I'd love to. So I first want to just invite your amazing audience. You have such a great group of Spoonie sisters. It's beautiful the way everyone encourages each other and I'm just honored to be here with all of you today. And I'd like to invite each of you to sign up to receive our happy mail. If you just go to cardstorewarriorsorg, just choose the happy mail program, whether you're an illness warrior or a caregiver because caregivers are the unsung heroes. We even support siblings and medical professionals, so we just have a wide reach of anyone who's touched by illness. We invite you to sign up.

Dawn: 2:28

But our happy mail is literally what it sounds like. It's mail that goes out several times a year. It lands with love in your mailbox and it's just there to brighten your day, to let you know that you're not alone, to encourage you over those humps. Like our annual Christmas in July card is in the mail right now as we're talking, jen, and it's such a fun like silly, silly celebration, because it's 98 degrees here in Orlando, florida, and we're just dreaming of snow or well, not really snows, we don't get that cold, but we're dreaming of Alaska, vacation to Alaska.

Dawn: 3:06

The heat index is like 110. So for all of our fellow heat people like, yeah, so we love our annual Christmas in July and it's just that fun time where we get to think about if it was nice and chilly outside. Those are our cards that are in the mail. We send it out five to six times a year. Our happy mail goes out. Anyone who signs up is constantly in the database and eligible to receive, and we do it on a rotating basis so you just never know when something fun and exciting will land in your mailbox. So that's our happy mail program.

Gracefully Jen: 3:40

And then there's another one where people can I mean okay, I'm going to butcher this, but people can sign up. I've signed up and I'm part of the card crew, so people can do that as well. So do you want to explain that a little bit?

Dawn: 3:54

Right, yes, so we shouldn't have all the joy of sending, sending cards out to people and really encouraging them. So we want to share, share the joy, and we have two really fun ways that people can volunteer with us. You can sign up in an ongoing basis where you sign up and join our card group and you commit to sending one card a month. That's it, that's all we ask. You can send as many as you want, but you commit to sending one a month. So it's an easy ask If you just want to check it out or you really don't have the time, but you're kind of interested. We also have a one-time volunteer option. So you can sign up, choose one time and you will get sent a person that you're going to make a card for and then you'll send that to us and we'll forward it on to the recipient. So we have those different ways that people can get involved.

Dawn: 4:45

We also do video cards. A lot of people don't know this, but we have a video card crew. So if writing isn't your thing or if you're in another country and it's harder for you to have safe mail, you can join our video crew, and it's literally selfie videos, messages that go out to our warriors who are in the hospital or who need support, a little bit quicker than than the snail mail can get to them. And what we found is so many people like you, jen. You had a job, job, you were active, you were working, you know you're just busy, busy, busy and then all of a sudden illness just takes you down and you're still that person that just wants to be involved in and you're trying to find your purpose and you're trying to figure out what you want to do. You've done an amazing job, and so we try to create something that people could all be a part of, even even if they're bed bound.

Dawn: 5:33

We have lots of warriors who are bed bound and there's just something special about them writing out a card or making a card. We have some very talented people out there. Let me tell you, I can't draw a stick figure to save my life, and we have people that make these gorgeous cards or write these beautiful messages. So it's just a beautiful way that, no matter what your situation for being bed bound, to working part time or full time, you can make a card for somebody and you you put that in the mailbox and you're just sending that love out to a fellow warrior and you know that you're you're making their day, you're you're making their month. Some of them have no support like cards from us are the only support they get. So it's just a beautiful, fun program, just full of love and hope and cheer. That's what we're all about.

Gracefully Jen: 6:19

Absolutely and okay, so those that get to see the video, and some some of you might not see it until later, cause you know this is a podcast, is there's not always video? But look behind Dawn right there, and there's that beautiful card with the flowers on it. Look behind Dawn, right there, and there's that beautiful card with the flowers on it. That is one of my favorites.

Gracefully Jen: 6:36

It is so gorgeous, whoever designed it my gosh, hands down, you've got mad skills. I love it. And you know, there's nothing that beats that feeling when they come in the mail and you're like, oh my gosh, look at this beautiful, stunning card. And it's high quality material as well. It's like thick cards, nice and glossy. I just yeah, I can't say enough kind things about it. It's so much fun.

Dawn: 7:03

That's awesome. So that was Jess Albert, one of our Canadian warriors, and that is another cool thing about us. Thank you for pointing that out. Every one of our cards are designed by an illness warrior. So we've had several artists want to do cards for us, but they're they're not a warrior. So we have to um say you know, sorry, we'd love to have you, but, um, we only support our illness warriors in the art that we have. So, yes, the um spring card that you have. I also brought a couple other ones for show and tell, so this was one of of our Christmas cards for all of our dog lovers. So cute.

Gracefully Jen: 7:38

I love it yeah.

Dawn: 7:39

This one might have been right before your time, jen, and this was our Christmas in July card from last year. Oh, I have that one, so look, how fun is that. Yes, so our other one's out this year, and you know. Then we also have our handwritten cards Like. Here's an example.

Dawn: 7:55

This person is mad talented. Look at this handwritten card. So on the front it says you're not alone and on the inside they wrote this beautiful message and actually drew some sketches with it. That's cute. You don't have to have.

Dawn: 8:09

I don't want people to be intimidated by that. You don't have to have. I don't want people to be intimidated by that. You don't have to have those kinds of skills to be part of this with us. You can. You just have to write from the heart. And if you're willing to write a message from the heart and you care about people on the other end, they feel the love when they open the card and it means the world. And I put the cards up behind us, because that's what so many of our warriors do. They string them across their hospital rooms or their bedrooms or they have boxes that they keep them in and on those bad days you know everybody has them they spread them out on their bed and they read all their messages and they just are reminded that, hey, they're not alone in this journey, that people are supporting them and thinking about them and cheering them on.

Gracefully Jen: 8:46

That's such a good point. So how do you choose the recipients of cards? Is this something where people can just sign up, or do people recommend them?

Dawn: 8:59

So we have our Happy Mail program, which I explained to you that that's open for anyone to sign up for and that is just a randomizer, it's just randomized. We send 10% of our cards international. We're always looking for international postage sponsors. So I'm just going to put that out there, because it breaks my heart when we can't send everyone a card, and especially our international warriors, because so many of them don't have support. Like it seems like we have a lot more support here. So if it were me, we'd send a card to everyone every single time. But that part's all randomized.

Dawn: 9:34

And then, for those times that a warrior is going through a tricky time, you know those atypical times facing a scary surgery, the loss of a service dog, you know a new diagnosis, those times where once you have an illness and you get diagnosed and you you kind of find your feet again, you adjust to you, adjust to life once again and you find like your new norm right, so you're cruising along. Well, there's always those things that come out of left field that just you just need help to get over that hump. Like we get over and over again. You know it's like, oh my gosh, I wanted to give up, I didn't know how he was going to do it.

Dawn: 10:08

Those are the times that you can nominate yourself, so you can be nominated by a loved one, or you can nominate yourself, because we are all about asking for help. Go to our website and look for nominate and you just nominate yourself. And Jen, those are the cards that our card crew writes. So our card crew writes out cards for those who are really struggling, who are going through those extra tough times, and those are where most of our handwritten cards are done, and so that's a perfect way to support a fellow warrior is through being on the card crew and helping those who are nominated for the extra support.

Gracefully Jen: 10:45

So the next thing I would like you to tell us a little bit about is the Warrior Card.

Dawn: 10:49

Swap. Okay, so that is a program that we have. It has its own website, warriorcardswapcom. It has its own branding. You'll notice it has a phoenix that's orange instead of the phoenix that's blue and green, and it runs as its own program and is only for people who live with illness. So if you're a caregiver or a medical professional sorry, this program is just for the warriors, but it's open to everyone, no matter what your illness is. If you're undiagnosed but seeking diagnosis because we all know sometimes it takes seven years to get a full diagnosis you're welcome to participate. And if you're a carrier you know our little ticking time bomb friends, as I like to call them. So they're a carrier. Nobody understands that, except for somebody else who's living with it or who's also a carrier.

Dawn: 11:37

So we just decided, when we were starting all of this and I have to shout out to Denise Archia from Chronic Warrior Coaching, because she actually started the card swap and then we brought it in under our nonprofit umbrella but we just decided we were going to open it up to everyone because there's so many rare diseases, there's so many people who are undiagnosed, there's so many people who don't have a home for support, and we believe that, supporting each other, we learn from each other. We encourage each other. We learn from each other. We encourage each other. We realize, gosh, on my bad days this other person's going through something completely different. That's also bad, and so I'm going to be thinking about them and they'll be thinking about me, and I just feel like we can learn and support each other all the way around. So that is our warrior card swap. It runs all year long and it's the same thing. It starts over on the first of every month. So you sign up once you register, and then on the first of every month you'll get an email asking or text asking if you want to opt in. If you say yes, you will be matched on the fifth and, in a perfect world, you mail your card by the 10th. Now we have a chronic illness community, so a lot of cards don't make it quite in the mail by the 10th, but as long as you mark that you're working on it, your recipient will know that it's coming and then you just send your card out as quick as you can and it will start back over on the 1st of the next month.

Dawn: 13:00

We also have a built-in program If somebody lands in the hospital or something happens, they can hit what we call the yikes button and we have a whole crew that will step in and send out a card so that nobody gets left hanging during the month. So it's been going for several years. We've had participants from all over the world, and those who participate can choose to send digital cards or snail mail. Most of them choose snail mail. You can choose to make a friend, meaning you're hoping you'll get a pen pal back and forth, or you can choose to just brighten someone's day. You just want to send a card and someone else will send you a card, and and then that's it. There's no other commitment required, but, um, it's been. It's a great program, and so, those who love sending and receiving mail, we encourage you to sign up for the warrior card spot program.

Gracefully Jen: 13:45

So my next question for you is okay, someone is not really interested in receiving or sending cards, but they want to help support what you're doing. Is there a way that they can do that?

Dawn: 13:59

Yes, absolutely. The easiest way is with the donation and the cool thing about us is we love $5 donations. So $5 sends out two cards and so you can choose how many cards you want to support or you want to help send and then you donate that amount and it can be done on our website. It can be done with Venmo. We're, at cards, the number two warriors. You can send a donation through Venmo. It's done in like five seconds. We have people say all the time that's the easiest donation I ever made and we don't hound our donors. We're super grateful for our donors and we do $5 fundraisers on the fifth of every month. So if somebody has $5 and they want to donate, awesome. If not, we'll catch you another month. But that's most of the fundraising that we do is our $5 and they want to donate Awesome. If not, we'll catch you another month. But that's that's most of the fundraising that we do is our $5 sends two cards.

Gracefully Jen: 14:47

I love it and I love how each month you you show someone's face and holding up their five and of course, this month it was me and I was so nervous I saw the photo and I was like that was when I was really sick. Well, at least I did it.

Dawn: 15:03

See, it's the proof that you're a true warrior. Even when you were so sick, you still took your picture and sent it to us. So it's a testimony to you and your strength.

Gracefully Jen: 15:13

Yeah, you know so many people do it. I love it. I love seeing everyone smiling happy face every month, and it's so cool. I love watching to see who's next, so I guess what I want to know is how many years have you been doing this? When did you start?

Dawn: 15:29

When did we? We started in 2019. I think it was 2019. Yes, we were originally chronicwarriorsorg. We had several programs that we supported, and the cards to warriors program just took off. So, um, about a year and a half ago, we actually um, you know, submitted all the paperwork and officially changed our name from chronicwarriorsorg to cards to warriors. So, if anybody knew us before, we're still the same. We're still the same organization. Our card program has just has just taken over all the other ones, so we decided to rename ourselves to Cards to Warriors.

Gracefully Jen: 16:07

So what are some challenges that you've faced? Running Cards to Warriors.

Dawn: 16:12

So tech Like I think people think snail mail and they don't realize all the tech that goes on behind the scenes. We have worked really hard. We've had several starts and restarts getting the tech pieces in place, because it's super important to us that we protect our warriors as much as we can, that everything's kept private, that we get permission from anyone under age before a card shows up, and it can be disconcerting. You know your child signs up to receive cards and all of a sudden cards show up in their mailbox and the parent's wondering, hey, who are you giving our information out to? So we just have a lot of security measures in place. So we have that.

Dawn: 16:53

The tech has been an interesting challenge, I have to say, like Target and Amazon and all these other multi-billion dollar organizations that have made tech just, you know, touch of the button, super easy, intuitive. It's a challenge for a little organization like us to get our warriors to understand. Listen, we know some of it's clunky, but you know we built this on a, you know, a $10,000 budget, not a $50,000 budget or a hundred thousand dollar budget, or even the big ones are millions, right, but um, we you know some of the the um, we wanted an app and some of those quotes at the beginning were $50,000. So so we put it together and I'm super proud of the team that we have. They have worked so hard to figure out, to get all the automations to work and to get everything. You know, jen, you go in there and you sign up to send somebody a card. Once you're vetted and approved in our system to send out cards, you know you can pop in there whenever you're inspired to make a card. You can choose your person, you send them a card, but there's a lot that's gone in to make that secure and just to get everything in place. So the good news is we have it all in place and now we can scale huge.

Dawn: 18:06

The tech has been an unexpected challenge. And then we're warriors who serve warriors. Consistency having our volunteers that don't go down with their illness sometimes that's a challenge. So we try to over. You know, we try to get more volunteers than we need. Or we have super simple asks, like the card crew one card a month and of course, if you have a month where you just can't do it, you just communicate with us. But that's we found that's what works. There's no pressure and just super simple asks and just bringing as many people together as possible. So that's where we're at right now.

Gracefully Jen: 18:43

Yeah, and you know know, what I also enjoy is that when you join the card crew, there's someone that reaches out and talks to you and they find out from you. Do you have your own cards that you want to use, or do you need?

Dawn: 18:54

cards, and they're more than happy to send you cards.

Gracefully Jen: 18:56

I told them you know what Save your money, keep your cards, I'll take care of it. I know I want this to come from me anyway, so I'm going to do the work. But they sent me some cute little stickers to slap on there every time. So people, as soon as they see it, they know it's coming from cards to warriors. And, and when I can, I try to draw or paint a cute little card, and if I'm being lazy they get Snoopy. But I love how just simplified you have made this, so that we can just be happy. But what people don't recognize is all the behind the scenes stuff and I just kudos to you. I love everything that you're doing.

Gracefully Jen: 20:37

And I really hope more people hear this and want to get involved.

Dawn: 20:42

Yeah that we would love it. We would love it, you know. I just I want to ask thank you for those kind words, jen, you're just so, you're so sweet A shout out to our amazing sponsors that help us have the cards that we can provide for our card crew and those who need them. Well is that people. They don't always trust that it's free, and I just want to reiterate that you can sign up with us and never donate $1 and you still have as much of a chance as anyone of getting a card, because we really are here to support everyone and that's what we're all about, right Caring and loving for each other. So so please, don't, please, don't hesitate to sign up. Don't think somebody else needs it more. I'm not going to sign up because there's somebody worse than me. No, you deserve. Every single person that hears this deserves to get happy mail. So sign up. Whether you're a warrior or a caregiver, a sibling or a medical professional, you deserve. You deserve to have some joy in your mailbox. So please come sign up.

Gracefully Jen: 21:47

And you know what you might gain a friend out of it. You know there are a few people that we continue writing back and forth. It's fun. You're going to meet more people like yourself or even people different than yourself. You get to know more about other illnesses, which I kind of oddly find fascinating. But you know it's all about friendship and kindness and love and support, and that's what I love about it.

Dawn: 22:11

Especially in the card swap. So many people have made friends. We even had some meet up like they're from different countries or different states and they've been able to meet in person. And then you get the random one of like, oh my gosh, I got matched to somebody and they've literally lived two streets over. Like it's just, you just never know. It's just fun to see the orchestration of what happens and just how things are meant to be. So it's great, it's a lot of fun.

Gracefully Jen: 22:37

Yeah, I have a funny fact for you. Uh, last month. I think I might've received a yikes card is what I think I got. But the funny thing is the girl used to live maybe two blocks from me before I moved across the state.

Dawn: 22:52

My gosh, don't you love it?

Gracefully Jen: 22:55

And she used to live on the side of the state that I'm in now.

Dawn: 22:59

Wow.

Gracefully Jen: 22:59

And so I opened the card and I was like, are you kidding me? This is just so funny. And I couldn't resist. I had to go write her back immediately because I was laughing so hard at just the connection there and I was like this is funny. I hope you laugh too. It's incredible. You never know.

Dawn: 23:17

That is so cool. I love that, because for all of that to happen, your match person had to withdraw, right, you got matched to somebody else. They had to hit the yikes button, which sometimes people feel bad about that, and we were like we have this crew in place and then we have like 50 or 60 people on our yikes crew, so then your yikes assignment had to be given to the exact right person who used to live right down the street. Like it's just so fun, who doesn't love that kind of like surprise and delight orchestration?

Gracefully Jen: 23:50

Absolutely. You know, I've had a couple of funny situations like that recently, and one of them was outside of Card to Warriors, but it was another person that somehow found me and found me with a podcast, and it turns out she used to live, or she lives, in the same city as me and she used to live over. This way, I mean, it was just like, oh wow, this is happening a lot to me lately.

Dawn: 24:11

That's very fun. That's very fun. The mysteries of the universe, right.

Gracefully Jen: 24:15

I know it's just how it all plays out. It's incredible. So what does the future hold for Cards to Warriors?

Dawn: 24:23

So, as you know, we have our first big goal of sending 100,000 cards. So hopefully the future holds in the not too distant future, that 100,000 card mark. And somebody asked me the other day, what are you going to do when you hit 100,000 cards? And I thought we haven't even stopped to think about what kind of celebration we're going to do. But we are over 36,000 to date, so we are chugging along towards that a hundred thousand mark. And so that's our first big goal is to hit a hundred thousand messages that have been sent out. So that's the, that's the first big goal of the future. And then you know it's it's to just keep it growing, to keep people sharing it and inviting others. And just you know, yeah, I'd love to get to where we're sending a hundred thousand cards a quarter. Wouldn't that be fun?

Gracefully Jen: 25:15

That would be incredible.

Dawn: 25:17

I know that'd be a lot of love going out in the mail.

Gracefully Jen: 25:20

I am going to throw out a challenge right now to every single one of you listening. Challenge right now to every single one of you listening, whether you're a new listener or someone that's been around for a while. Go sign up right now and join the card crew. I want to see you mailing cards because I know a lot of my listeners love sending happy mail, loves getting happy mail. So go join it right now and drop me a DM. Let me know that you did it and maybe I'll send you some happy mail just for doing it.

Dawn: 25:50

I love that, jen, that's awesome. Hey, can I share one more quick thing about when they sign up? Absolutely so. This is really fun too. So when you sign up, there'll be everything is kept super confidential. There's only a couple of us that have access to the database just to let everyone know. But there's one box on there that says put anything here that you're okay with us sharing. And there's an example.

Dawn: 26:14

And the purpose of that is because we are getting more and more groups and teams and people who find out about us. So, for example, we had several pre-med clubs at UCF here in Orlando that wanted to write cards for us. So they would get together and they'd maybe write 25 or 50. We had a high school do 400. We had another high school do 2000. We had we have all kinds of corporate teams that sign up to do cards, you know. So it'll be anywhere from 10 cards to, you know, 500 at a time, and so what we do for those is we pull from our big master database because we already have our card crew that's sending out to those who are really struggling.

Dawn: 26:55

But that little box that you share there is what we will share with the people who handwrite cards for teens, for example, jen, if you get picked, they would see Jen, jenny, whatever you have in there Jen, jenny, jennifer, and whatever you put whatever you put is what they're going to see. So what we do is we send them a spreadsheet. It has your first name, your age, the state that you live in in that little box and then whether or not you like cards of faith, because that is a question we ask. You know it's a polarizing thing. Some people love getting cards with messages of faith and some people are like no, not for me. So we do ask that question on there and we are super respectful of what everyone requests, and so when a team signs up to do a card, they will be able to write your card specifically for you because of what you put in your little box.

Dawn: 27:46

So don't be intimidated that we're going to share any of your information. Don't worry, it's all kept very secure. It's only whatever you put in the box that we tell you that we are going to share and get your permission to share that anybody ever sees. But it does make it super fun for the writer, you know, for somebody to write a card to someone that that they can say you know, I have a Chihuahua too, and my favorite color is blue. My gosh, that's my favorite movie. You know, you have all these little connection points with a stranger who's writing a card for you and it just makes it super special. So I just wanted to let everyone know that, that that they can trust us and we we guard, we guard your information so carefully and we will only ever share the little box that you say we're allowed to share.

Gracefully Jen: 28:30

Absolutely, and I'll even. I'll be really honest. I'll read you mine right now.

Gracefully Jen: 28:35

So, there's a little spot that says a fun fact about you and I was like I don't know. So I just this is the real. I enjoy painting, listening to 80s music Cause you know I was born in 80 and spending time with my cats. Additionally, I host a podcast called my Spoonie Sisters. And then, what types of cards do you like to receive? I guess I said I wanted a winter themed one for July. I don't even remember doing that. And yeah, I've checked that. I love, you know, getting cards back and forth with people and yeah.

Dawn: 29:08

Yeah, that's mine, I love it. I love you know getting cards back and forth with people and yeah, yeah, that's my love it, I love it. All the cards, all the cards for teams come back to us. We send them out, so no addresses or anything like that ever get shared. But I love that. I love your fun fact, so then somebody could talk to you about your podcast or your cats or you know just any of the fun things that you mentioned. So it's cool.

Gracefully Jen: 29:28

Yeah, I mean I've noticed that some people leave it blank or they only put a little bit in there. But anything that you put in there is going to help someone know what to say, Because if there's nothing written there, I'm sorry but I'm going to look at it and go. What do you want me to say to you? I don't even know you, so you're talking about the card swap.

Dawn: 29:45

Yes, and just to clarify, you're talking about the card swap registration. So if you're writing back and forth to an illness where you're in the card swap, the more you put in that little box, the more connection the person will have back to you. It's really hard to write a card to somebody that just says you know, like one little line, you're not quite sure what to say. And then also I was talking about on the card swap registration as well, there's one little box for their little comment. So the more like, just put yourself out there a little bit, cause you just never know what, what, um, what someone's going to say or what random things people have in common. It's really fun.

Dawn: 30:23

It's fun to see it's it's people have. People are also unique and they're curious and they have these cool hobbies and things that you never even thought of and what they're into. Yeah, it's fascinating. So I just hope everyone will sign up and that they'll really enjoy receiving mail or sending and receiving mail, or even joining the card crew and sending mail, additional mail yeah, we just love to have anybody and everybody be a part of it.

Gracefully Jen: 30:50

Most definitely. Well, before we close, is there anything we haven't touched on that you would like us to make sure we go over?

Dawn: 30:58

If somebody doesn't like writing cards, we have plenty of other volunteer opportunities. So if you just go to the website and go to the blog, there's our volunteer wishlist. So I just want everyone to know if you want to get involved sending cards isn't your thing because it's not for everyone then we welcome you. We welcome you in any way that you have your skills and your talents and your passions that you want to share with us. I'm sure we've got a spot for you, because together we're all here to support each other. So that's what it's all about. It's working together to find a way to do that.

Gracefully Jen: 31:30

Yes, absolutely Well, thank you so much. It was such an honor to have you here with us today.

Dawn: 31:36

I loved it. Thank you so much.

Gracefully Jen: 31:39

Well, my Spoonie sisters, I will make sure that we have all the information, all the links for all of the different programs listed in this episode. So be sure to check it out and remember my challenge Please sign up, send a card to somebody. It's really not that hard. You're going to enjoy it. You might make a friend. Until next time, don't forget your spoon.