This Nurse is Wishing You a Happy Nurses Week - Ep. 44
Happy Nurses Week 2020, you amazing nurses! Thank you for all that you do and are doing even more so now as the landscape of our careers has totally changed.
To celebrate nurses week, I wanted to highlight an amazing organization that started in Staten Island by an awesome couple who’s sister works on a COVID unit in a university hospital. Hearing the fear and exhaustion she faced they wanted to do something special for her and other nurses. Out of that Go In Your Purse for a Nurse was created. Now having raised several thousands of dollars, this organization has been able to support not only nurses but small businesses that are also struggling.
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Links mentioned:
Nurse on FIRE Thanks All Nurses
Go In Your Purse For a Nurse Website
Go In Your Purse For a Nurse Facebook Page
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:00): Okay. Nurses on FIRE. I have a really special treat for you guys. I have Loreen and Sal Indelicato and Mike Cortese joining us from Go in Your Purse for a Nurse and this is special organization that just sprung out out of this crisis to help nurses that are working on the front lines and so I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Loreen so you can explain the origins of Go in Your Purse for a Nurse.
Loreen Indelicato (00:31): Hi guys. It really started because my sister is a nurse in Staten Island, one of the Staten Island hospitals here. Just hearing her stories night after night and just what you guys go through every day. It was just heartbreaking and one night I just was listening, listening to her and how overwhelmed she was, how scared she was, how these nurses would just go in to a fire.
Loreen Indelicato (00:59): That's literally how it sounded and I just felt so bad, so I said to my husband, I would really love to do something for them because they're doing so much for us. I just wanted to maybe like after this was all over, give them a night to just relax and enjoy. And so then my husband thought up, you know what, the small businesses are being affected too by this. Maybe we could, you know, kill two birds with one stone and we'll get gift certificates for dinners or spas or, you know, get your nails done, your hair done, and go out and go out to dinner
Sal Indelicato (01:39): When things get back to normal. So my son came up with a great name "Go in Your Purse for a Nurse". Yeah. So I mean we really, Staten Islanders really came together, so generous, opened up their hearts, opened up their wallets. We've raised so much money and we're going to get ahead and we're going to small businesses like Loreen said, nail salons, hair salons, clothing stores, restaurants, purchasing gift certificates. And Nurse's Week is actually coming up and we're going to go ahead and want to plan something or to where we're going to go ahead and present those gifts tickets to our lovely nurses, hardworking nurses.
Naseema McElroy (02:26): So you guys have actually expanded outside of Staten Island though.
Loreen Indelicato (02:29): Correct, yes. And now that's Mike part now go ahead.
Mike Cortese (02:36): So yeah, so they're on a family call just on speaker phone. Their daughter, my wife Justine, and they were just brainstorming about the idea and they're always looking to help out in any time there's a crisis or somebody needs help. That's what this family does. And I was just sitting on the couch and I had the idea for the name. Then we set it and my wife Justine, our cousin Jacka, uh, assisted my mother -in-law Loreen and the social media and setting up the Facebook page and her Venmo. And then sure enough, what a little segment on Fox news of Facebook page is just getting hit with people with such big hearts. And that's, you know, some of the silver lining we've seen through all this and all the sadness is that, you know, there are a lot of amazing people in this world who have great hearts that want to do that part. You know, we have people that reached out to us. Either they have family members, like not side, who are nurses or just some people that have said, you know what? I need to do something. I'm just home. I'm working from home. Thank God. I feel like I need to do something. And now it's just been really inspiring to hear all these people that just want to part. So we've been having people carry out campaigns sort of across the country in their home towns.
Naseema McElroy (03:38): I love that you guys just aren't focusing on nurses but are focusing on small businesses. I think it's extra critical that you guys are actually really impacted by this Loreen, because you guys are in the healthcare industry as well. Can you speak to just how you guys have personally been impacted?
Loreen Indelicato (03:59): Well, I'm a dental hygienist and my husband is an orthodontist and honestly since the middle of March we had to stop working. So we literally have not worked since then. And I'm kind of afraid going back to, because I feel like us too now we're going to be like in the middle of all this. So I don't know. I don't know.
Sal Indelicato (04:26): I mean, so for like I was saying before, there's a little bit of a shortage of obtaining those n95 masks. So hopefully as the demand declines our suppliers will be able to get those to us and then gradually get back to work. But things are going to be a little different. I mean we've always practiced really good sterilization and disinfecting techniques, but we're going to have to now limit, well first screen patients that come into the office. Limit how many patients are actually in the office in the waiting room. Kind of space out our scheduling a little bit until this really calms down.
Naseema McElroy (05:06): Yeah, I was going to ask you about screening because that's the one thing that they were trying to implement out here to make sure that people coming into dental offices are screened. I mean cause there's no way you can't be in close contact with someone. Like especially, yeah, like you're all in their mouth and all of that. Like even for me as a labor and delivery nurse, like just a delivery because all the things that happen during the delivery is considered an aerosolizing procedure. So I mean I can just imagine you guys have that too. The only thing is, you know, a lot of your procedures are technically elective. Not really, but like you know, you can space them out a little bit so you have a little bit of control over that. But I'm just really impressed that even with the impacts that you guys have personally undergone, I mean your income sources basically just got wiped out over night. Really. It was just like shut down like, but even in these times you guys are finding ways to give back, not only to nurses but to small businesses and so thank you guys so much.
Sal Indelicato (06:15): Well, but things are perspective. I mean you guys are literally right there and I don't think anyone at this point has experienced anything like this in their lifetime and you guys are literally right on the front line.
Loreen Indelicato (06:29): You guys are amazing and you deserve it. You deserve it. You need a little recognition.
Naseema McElroy (06:35): Yeah. It's kind of hard as a nurse to kind of hear it because on one hand it's kind of like what we signed up for, right? We're supposed to be the frontline people. We're here for that, but never in my life have I thought that I would have to experience something like this where I'm really risking my life because we don't have the available resources. We don't know what to look out for. We don't know who's sick and who's not sick. It's scary times. Yeah. And so it's kind of hard. It's a hard time to be in this profession but also to be looked at as kind of like a hero. Cause they're like, yeah, but this is what we're supposed to do. But at the same time, we have never had to do our jobs like this ever. Like.
Loreen Indelicato (07:23): You didn't sign up for this?
Naseema McElroy (07:25): No.
Loreen Indelicato (07:30): I mean I just think about like with my sister, she leaves her family every day and does it know what's going to happen? And that was another thing. I felt so bad for it. You know, you don't know what you bring in home. Right? No. That's another thing. It's like, you know, it's just a scary thing for you guys
Sal Indelicato (07:50): And uh, hopefully learned a lot from this. Yeah, definitely have to be so much more prepared next time around. And hopefully this next time around doesn't happen for a very long time, but have to be prepared.
Naseema McElroy (08:04): Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about what Go in Your Purse for a Nurse has done and what you guys plan to do more nationally now that you guys are expanding outside of Staten Island.
Loreen Indelicato (08:17): Like I said, it started just, well we will like, you know what, let's just do my sister's floor at the hospital. And then we literally like woke up the next morning and we had a thousand dollars now. And then right now just Staten Island from, from what we did on our end, we have almost 20,000. Yeah, almost 20. And then from there when we were on Fox news, it kind of just spread because people were asking, what did you do? How did you do it? How can we do this? We want to do this in our town. And like that. So that's where Mike came in and he was bombarded with all the emails and all and he came up with um, you know, telling them what to do. And you could tell him that part. Mike.
Mike Cortese (09:08): Yeah. So we have a, you can visit us on our Facebook page or on our website [inaudible] dot org and learn a little bit more about our story. Let's see. Just different ways you could get involved and help out. I try to keep this campaign going.
Naseema McElroy (09:21): How do you guys work with small businesses or hospitals in order to get this to nurses?
Loreen Indelicato (09:30): With me, it was just started where I wanted to just work with my sister's hospital. So then now being on Staten Island, it's a very small community and yeah, and we kinda know our restaurant owners and a lot of the store owners. So it was easy for us cause we just wanted to reach out to them and just hearing their stories, we're like, we know, you know, they're hurting. So we said, you know what, we're just gonna purchase gift cards when we get enough money. We just purchase the gift guides. You know, call them, get them. And then we're gonna have a special with trying to figure out, like have a special events at the hospital in the parking lot and maybe have all those small businesses come that day just to, maybe and where one of their shirts with their logo on it and maybe give out the gift cards at that point.
Naseema McElroy (10:29): All right you guys, thank you so much and I will be contacting you guys cause I'm sure I'm going to get a lot. Thank you again. This means a lot that you even reached out. Alright. Alright, I appreciate it. Bye.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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