Andrea Melton:
Welcome to Live Wire, a podcast powered by Kosciusko REMC. We are a member-owned and locally-operated cooperative that supplies electricity to portions of Kosciusko, Fulton, Wabash, and Whitley Counties here in northern Indiana. Livewire is a program where we come together to discuss co-op matters, energy, community topics, and to communicate with KREMC members. I'm your host, Andrea Melton.

Hello, and thank you so much for joining us today for this second episode of Live Wire. If you are a KREMC member, you've probably heard of Operation Round Up, and if you're not, maybe you haven't or maybe you are aware of the program. But we're going to talk a little bit about Operation Round Up today, and we have the opportunity to talk with a recent recipient of an Operation Round Up Grant.

Operation Round Up is a program in which KREMC members pool their resources together to help those in need. The concept is simple. Each month these members allow us to round up their bill to the next dollar. For example, if a member has an electric bill of $82.71, that bill would be rounded up to $83 with $0.29 being donated to the program.

Each participating member on average contributes approximately $6 a year. The money is then deposited into the Kosciusko REMC Operation Round Up Fund, which is held at the Kosciusko County Community Foundation. A voluntary advisory committee comprised of KREMC members meets regularly to review applications for Operation Round Up grants and to make grant recommendations. Charitable organizations may apply for a grant from the trust.

Today we have Shannon Jenks in the studio, who is an area coordinator for Ryan's Case For Smiles, an outstanding organization that was a recent recipient of an Operation Round Up Grant. Shannon, thank you so much for joining me today.

Shannon Jenks:
Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and so grateful to Kosciusko REMC for their financial support and the recognition that you're providing for Ryan's Case For Smiles today.

Andrea Melton:
Well, let me tell you, I had not previously been very familiar with Ryan's Case For Smiles. When I was looking through our list of recent recipients of the Operation Round Up grants, it caught my eye. And so when I went to the website and started learning about this organization, it's a pretty wonderful thing. I'm very excited to get the chance to talk with you and learn more about the organization myself personally, but also just share the organization, the story behind it, the amazing work that you folks are doing with the community. For anybody else who maybe isn't aware, we're excited just to tell the story. So Shannon, how long have you been with Ryan's Case For Smiles?

Shannon Jenks:
I have been with Ryan's Case For Smiles since 2010, and that initially started as a volunteer only... I don't want to say volunteer only because the volunteers are so crucial to making this mission work. But I started out in 2010 after my husband had received a medical diagnosis. And then as I was looking at retirement in 2019, I approached Ryan's Case For Smiles because there was an opening for this area for a coordinator and feeling that I wanted this to be my next chapter. So in 2019, I took over as the coordinator for this area, and we have since added a second coordinator. So I have been with them 2010 as a volunteer and 2019 forward as a coordinator.

Andrea Melton:
Wow, that's a good amount of time, so I'm confident that you are a wonderful person to be talking to who has a long history with this organization. So tell us, for those who don't know, what does Ryan's Case For Smiles do?

Shannon Jenks:
Okay. Ryan's Case For Smiles sews pillowcases and places them in hospitals for children that have had surgery or are dealing with a medical condition. They also go in homeless shelters, which is unfortunate to think that we have to consider children living in homeless shelters. But it's not just a pillowcase. The power of this pillowcase is real. It helps to reduce post-traumatic stress. A lot of children in the hospital deal with post-traumatic stress from the sterile environment, the scary environment. So a pillowcase on their bed is a diversion. It is a tool to help this child heal better and heal faster. So this is why we place them on the beds, is to take away that anxiety and stress and fear that comes with a hospitalization or being in a strange environment.

Andrea Melton:
These aren't just any pillowcases either, Shannon. You've brought several of them with you today for me to look at. Thank you so much. They are just beautiful. You have local volunteers who are sewing these, right? They must be sewing up a storm.

Shannon Jenks:
Locally, in Kosciusko County, we have what I would consider three groups that are sewing with us in Kosciusko County. One being a group that meets on a monthly basis at First United Methodist Church on Indiana Street, and then we have a number of volunteers that also sew with us and press from Grace Village Retirement Community. The Kosciusko Home Economic Group also sews with us. And our volunteers range in age from age 9 to 96. The majority of our pillowcases are pressed from our volunteers with Grace Village. So they press approximately, I would say 75% of our pillowcases and package them and just do a marvelous job. So there's no age constraints on this. It's for young and old, and you just need to be young at heart in order to do that. Not everyone needs to know how to sew. If you can sew a straight line, you are a pro, but no sewing skills are required to help volunteer to finish this pillowcase from start to finish. We work on a Henry Ford type assembly line that. We have a number of different stations that we just crank the pillowcases out and just pass them on to the next individuals to complete the next step.

Andrea Melton:
Wonderful. Taking a step back and looking at Ryan's Case For Smiles as a national organization, can you share with us a bit about how Ryan's Case For Smiles got started and who Ryan is?

Shannon Jenks:
Absolutely. Ryan Kerr is an actual little boy, and at age 12, Ryan Kerr had a bicycle accident and his parents took him to the hospital anticipating a possible break, but they knew he needed sutures. But what actually they found when they did the scans at the emergency room is that he had osteosarcoma. They found a mass around his knee. And so Ryan's first visit or follow-up visit would have been with an oncologist. So it was determined that he had cancer and he needed to start chemotherapy.

And so his mother feeling absolutely helpless and Ryan being a 12-year-old and not really being able to comprehend what was going on with him, his mother kept thinking, "What can I do?" Because this was something completely out of our control as humans and parents. She was stressed, so she knew his favorite food was cheeseburgers. She found some fabric with cheeseburgers on it and made him a pillowcase, stuffed it in her handbag. And then when they put Ryan in his recliner for his first chemotherapy treatment, she got up and she put the pillowcase on his pillow on his recliner. He looked back at her and smiled. She smiled and felt more relaxed, and the parents and the children around Ryan also smiled and commented on the pillow.
So over the course of the next few years, Ryan ended up going through a number of chemo treatments, radiation, had a titanium rod put in his lower leg. The knee leg still was then amputated below the knee. When Ryan was age 17, at that point in time, he was on palliative care. He said, "No more. This is it. I want no more treatment." And so he passed away at the age of 17 during his senior year in high school. But before he passed, he told his parents, he said, "Don't stop this mission. Don't stop this." And so it's grown from being in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where research was also done on post-traumatic stress and the positive effects of these pillowcases, and it has now spread across the country and into Canada.

Andrea Melton:
Wow. What an incredible story. Sad, but it's inspiring that one young man could be the catalyst for such a movement that is helping so many children and their families around the country and here locally with pillowcases. Talk with me more about that, Shannon. I know you mentioned there has been research conducted, and there is evidence that these pillowcases do directly benefit a child's mental health and I would think of physical health, too. Can you talk with me more about that?

Shannon Jenks:
Sure. Studies were done at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital and also the DuPont Center in Pennsylvania on the effects of post-traumatic stress and with children. And they have equated to being very similar to what soldiers have faced coming back and are military from Vietnam. And they found that with the children that are hospitalized, approximately 20% of them have post-traumatic stress symptoms and 30% of the parents. A lot of what the parents are exhibiting also just leeches into the child, so it can help elevate the stress that the child is feeling.

So the pillowcases have been shown to reduce that stress and anxiety that a child has. Because if you go into a hospital environment, hospital environments are very sterile. They're very plain, there's not a lot of color. The doctors are talking over the top, probably to the parents and the other nursing staff, and the child will sometimes feel invisible. They're talking in a language the child does not understand. Putting a pillowcase on their bed that is bright and whimsical, whether it's Star Wars or it's cars or it's rubber duckies, is going to give the child a diversion from what is going on around them and it's going to take their mind off their illness. But in essence, what it's doing, it's helping that child to just release the anxieties and the stresses they're going on, which helps them heal and it helps their outlook to be better.

What a lot of the nursing staff will tell the parents when they leave the hospital is, put this pillowcase on the child's bed at home. And so they get to take the pillowcase home, and so they are encouraged to use them after they leave the hospital because the post-traumatic stress will also follow the child home.

Andrea Melton:
I find that interesting when you were giving the numbers, the percentages, that that percentage for adults or for parents who have those post-traumatic stress symptoms is a little bit higher than the children themselves who went through the illness. I think as a parent myself and for anyone else who is a parent, they could understand that how difficult to be in that situation, how just overwhelming. I really can't imagine.

When I was looking into Ryan's Case For Smiles, it became clear going through the website and the information that the organization really evolved beyond just the creation and providing of these beautiful pillowcases. They're offering additional programs and support for children and their families who are going through these illnesses and these circumstances. Can you talk a bit about the additional services?

Shannon Jenks:
Yes, I can. Aside from the pillowcase, it goes to the child that would be a patient. There is also website information that is provided that can connect the parent for ongoing support with dealing with what the child's illness is. Because when a child becomes ill, and especially a child that is chronically ill, it doesn't affect just the child, it affects the whole family. And so Ryan's recognizes that, because the child that is in the hospital is the one where the parent's attention seems to be directed and the other children can feel left out and they also can feel lost and sometimes a little jealous of the attention that their sibling is receiving. The parents just need help trying to juggle the whole situation with the entire family.

So there are resources that are available through Ryan's Case For Smiles for the family as a whole, and they have also started a new program that are Sib Boxes. The Sib boxes the child also receives, it'd be the sibling, would receive a pillowcase. They're going to receive a book that is a book that is applicable to their age and also something that has a storyline that is going to help them deal with what's going on with their child, some stress reliever games. But they've recognized that it's not just the child in the hospital that is affected, especially a child that is dealing with a serious injury from an accident or a child that's dealing with a cancer diagnosis. It will affect the entire family, and the entire family needs that support.

Andrea Melton:
Absolutely. As the area coordinator, can you describe for me some of the ways in which you engage with the local community and volunteers to support the mission of Ryan's Case For Smiles?

Shannon Jenks:
As far as with Ryan's, our biggest mission right now for us as a local chapter is trying to educate people on what it is that we do; that they recognize it's not just a pillowcase and there is a purpose behind that.

One way that we are working with our community to give us more recognition and have people become more knowledgeable of Ryan's Case For Smiles is involving area businesses in team building events with our staff. And so we will actually either go on site or they will meet us at a site that we can secure and we will go through the mission of what Ryan's Case For Smiles is and have them follow through with the steps.

Ryan's Case For Smiles has been benefited greatly by some businesses in the area that will donate to Ryan's Case For Smiles on behalf of their associates. Zimmer Biomet will donate up to $500 a year to Ryan's Case For Smiles and also DePuy Johnson and Johnson has a similar program in which they will match the employee gift up to two times what the employee gives up to $10,000, and even for retirees, they continue to match the funds. Other area businesses have been touched by Ryan's Case For Smiles, either from an associate or staff member who has had a child that has been a recipient of a pillowcase, and we just receive out of the blue a very generous gift to support us. We also have grants that we apply for, and we have been the recipient of a number of grants which help keep us afloat from that point-of-view.

We also have developed recently a PowerPoint presentation that we have began showing to people within the community that you don't have to read through everything, but you get just a really good overview on what Ryan's Case For Smiles is, what it involves, what our cost to our donors are. It talks about our volunteers, and we also have some marketing materials out there. I think our best ambassadors for Ryan's Case For Smiles has to be our volunteers. They have become volunteers with a purpose, volunteers with a Servant's Heart. The individuals at Grace Village have just been amazing, and I think we all need to just be very cognizant that. As we age, we don't just sit and do nothing. We can still be active and still be a contributor to the community.

Andrea Melton:
That's a wonderful message for sure. So if someone is listening and they're interested in getting involved with Ryan's Case For Smiles, whether that be someone who has some sewing ability or is interested in helping out or maybe just wants to help monetarily or wants to bring Ryan's Case For Smiles to their organization, how can they do that? How can they get involved?

Shannon Jenks:
There are a number of ways, and one would be to go to the Ryan's Case For Smiles website and click on our chapter. We are the South Bend chapter. This is the volunteers that represent Warsaw, Columbia City, Goshen, and the South Bend area. You can find information there as how to contact either myself, Shannon Jinx or Amanda Gould. You can also donate directly to that site that it will go just to our chapter.

We also have a Facebook page. It's Ryan's Case For Smiles, South Bend chapter, and you can get information there. We do have our own QR code at this point in time that if you're interested or someone's interested, I can make sure that is on our Facebook page, that someone could donate directly to us in that way. You could also look me up on Facebook, Shannon Jinx. Most of my posts are for Ryan's Case For Smiles. So we are welcome to gifts, whether it is your time or whether it's financial gifts or in kind, whether you want to donate a couple of yards of a hundred percent cotton fabric or you have thread that you want to purchase for us or laundry detergent. So there's a number of different ways that individuals within the community can help.

Andrea Melton:
Wonderful. And as far as receiving the Operation Round Up grant, are those funds used for materials primarily?

Shannon Jenks:
When Ryan's Case For Smiles receives money from grants, and especially, we'll just use Kosciusko REMC for example, 95% of our costs are fabric related. New fabric at a quilt shop runs around $12 a yard, but I want to assure the people within our community and REMC that we are going to be good stewards of the money that you give us and you provide to us. We shop on sale racks. We look for bargains. We call manufacturers to see if we can get deals on fabric and have really done very well as lowering our price point on cotton fabric.

Our other expenses are for thread and maintenance on machines, color catchers, which we use to help grab any color that is coming off fabric before it goes to the child and they launder it, and laundry detergent, rotary blades, and packaging materials. So that's where the last 5% of it goes is for those type of items. But the majority of our expense, 95% of it is purchasing the cotton fabric.

In a year, Ryan's Case For Smiles, our local chapter, chapter distributes 544 pillowcases a month. So that's going to equate to about 6,400 pillowcases that are going to be placed under children's heads in our area hospitals and shelters. From a total point-of-view, since we started here in 2019 and retooled, when I became coordinator, we have given around 18,000 pillow cases in that length of time. From a national perspective, there's been 2.5 million pillowcases that have been distributed by all 120 Ryan's Case For Smiles chapters.

Andrea Melton:
Just incredible. Shannon, what has Ryan's Case For Smiles meant to you personally? Obviously, you've been involved for a long time. What part has it played in your life?

Shannon Jenks:
The biggest part it plays in my life is I don't want to see children hurting. When my husband received a cancer diagnosis in 2010, Phil and I looked at each other and one of us said, "I don't like this path we're going down," And the other one of us said, "At least it's not a child or a grandchild." And that was how I discovered Ryan's Case For Smiles. Because even though it was difficult for us as an adult, I can't imagine it as a parent and having a child that is dealing with a very serious illness. And for me, it has enabled me to come in contact with nursing staff that tell me it's the best part of their job, is to put that pillowcase on a child's head. It makes me feel a warm spot when a parent drops me a note and tells me how much it meant to them that their child who was on life support received one of our pillowcases, and it's now going to be starting kindergarten.

It means a lot to me when an administrator at the hospital tells me they were having problems with the blood draw, and they gave the child a pillowcase and the child immediately was diverted. It's their attention and the blood draw went on with no events. So it means a lot to me. Even though we don't receive responses from all 6,000 plus of these pillowcases we give a year, the ones we do receive lets us know that we are making a difference in a child and we're helping to make it easier for our medical professionals to do their jobs better, and that child is surely going to heal better and have a smile on their face when they leave the hospital and they receive that pillowcase.

Andrea Melton:
Such a powerful message and a powerful organization. I know you came in saying thank you to REMC for the grant. The grant is very helpful. Yes. But thank you, Shannon, and thank you to Amanda and to all those who are working with Ryan's Case For Smiles to provide these wonderful pillowcases that are truly so much more than just pillowcases. Shannon, is there anything else we haven't talked about that you want to talk about or that you would like for people to know?

Shannon Jenks:
Yes.

Andrea Melton:
Okay.

Shannon Jenks:
I would like to thank all of our volunteers that help us, whether they help us every week or they just are able to help when they're a snowbird, but the fellowship that comes from working with these men and women and even some young children. We've had high school students from Warsaw High School. The fulfillment you've given me to see the conversations and just the interactions that you have provided at the sessions we have, the friendships are invaluable. So aside from the pillowcase, which is a powerful thing within itself, just the friendship and the fellowship that comes with our volunteers, that the job could not get done without them. So I just have to say thank you to all of them.

Andrea Melton:
Wonderful. Well, I hope they are listening and they hear your thanks.

Well, Shannon, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to join me and tell us about Ryan's Case For Smiles, an amazing organization doing amazing things, not just nationally, but here locally, and we can see and feel the effects of that. Thank you for coming in and bringing more awareness to the organization and what you folks are doing. I appreciate it. I've been enlightened and inspired, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Shannon Jenks:
Thank you so much for asking us.

Andrea Melton:
You've been listening to Livewire, the official podcast of Kosciusko REMC. To learn more about KREMC, visit our website kremc.com and follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.