We never know what to fully expect when we deliver gifts to any hospital, but delivering Cheeriodicals to a hospital we’ve never delivered to, is always exciting and sometimes challenging. Just like visiting your favorite restaurant chain in different cities, every hospital is the same, but also different. Our experience delivering to over 80 children’s hospitals makes us feel like children’s hospital experts – especially when it comes to logistics and protocols. We know what to expect, but there are often moments that surprise us.

Over the summer, as a part of the Deloitte University Summer Intern Conferences, I had the opportunity to deliver Cheeriodicals to a hospital we have visited many times. However, this time we were given access to the hospital’s outpatient clinic as opposed to their inpatients.

Delivering to an outpatient clinic at first seems less meaningful than delivering to inpatients. After all, children in an outpatient area often get to go home the same day. They aren’t required to endure the long stays filled with uncomfortable tests, privacy invasions, and constant interruptions to both sleep and just being a kid. Still, the children who visit outpatient clinics face a host of other difficulties, especially those coming in for long-term therapy and treatments. These frequent visits to the hospital often last for weeks and sometimes even years.

It was our joy to set up more than 200 Cheeriodicals in a waiting area in this outpatient clinic. Nurses and child life specialists filled carts with them and took them back to treatment areas and our team walked around multiple waiting areas and personally handed them out.

One family sat just a few feet away as we organized the Cheeriodicals for distribution. A little girl about 8 years old sat with her parents and grandmother. The girl’s curious looks moved us to give her a box and of course we loved watching her open it. We quickly realized that she wasn’t there for treatment at all, but she was waiting for her sister to come out of surgery. It was a boring and scary day for her until we arrived. Her fears were not evident at first, but after she played for a while, her grandmother approached me.

With a soft and shaky voice she expressed her thanks for the fun box of cheer. Though we try to keep the focus on the smiles at our events, often people want to share their situations with us.

She began sharing how her grandson, the older brother of the little girl with the gift box, had recently died of an undiagnosed illness. This family was in pain and something as seemingly minor as an outpatient surgery for their youngest daughter had them burdened and worried beyond what I, or anyone, could comprehend. The grandmother saw what the gift meant to her granddaughter and how a green box can bring so much brightness. With a hug she expressed her thanks for the distraction and for the smiles.

After delivering thousands of gift boxes to children’s hospitals I’ve learned to fight back the tears and hold a smile for the sake of those we’re there to encourage, but that does not make these situations any less impactful. I talked to the little girl about her favorite things and what she was going to share with her sister. I explained that her sister already had her own box waiting for her when she came out of surgery. This box was her own. I asked her if we could get a picture together and when I knelt down behind her I was nearly wrecked by what she did and her mother’s response. Much like her grandmother, this fearful little girl leaned back against my shoulder just as one of my own children might do. Her mother took the picture and then quietly said, “you look like you could be her brother.”

The complexity of emotions in that moment would take too long to fully unpack but I got the feeling that for the moment they had brought me into their family. In the safety of this family, in a boring and fearful situation and in the aftermath of loss, the simplicity of a gift from compassionate strangers opened the door for the comfort of a hurting child and family.

This encounter is why we work hard to deliver Big Green Boxes of Cheer. Our thanks to Deloitte University and all their student interns for making moments like these possible.