A month ago, a group of staff within the Department of Internal Medicine decided they needed to do something to bring joy to the front line caregivers at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH). Mastermind Jessica Santore invited Jennifer Caprio, Roberta Biceglia, Nancy Kravitz, Amy Anderson, Julie Parry, and Julise Penn to brainstorm about what the staff could do to relieve some of the stress felt by the physicians working around the clock to treat COVID-positive patients.
“We knew that there was a lot of food being delivered to the hospital,” explained Biceglia. “But we felt that if there were quick, convenient snacks that they could grab and go and eat as needed, that would be different and enjoyed by all any time of the day.”
Snacks of Kindness, coined by Caprio, was born. In two weeks, the department staff (and some faculty) raised over $1000 from 40 people. Santore, Caprio, and Biceglia assembled the bags of granola bars, chips, gum, trail mix, nuts, and chocolates and completed the first round of deliveries on May 7 to the COVID floors at both the York Street and Saint Raphael campuses of YNHH.
On May 27, the group made a second round of deliveries of 500 snack bags to the COVID floors and emergency departments on both campuses.