Last summer, Kathy, one of our Day Services Recreation Assistants, spent a Saturday walking around Madison Art on the Square in Madison, WI. This is a neat event where vendors display and sell their works of art.
Michael Thiele was a vendor at the event and his art was hand-made, hardwood, acoustic drums. Kathy stopped at his booth, asked questions about his drums, and mentioned that she worked with adults with disabilities at Goodwill. She also mentioned how important music was to our program. Unfortunately, these beautiful wooden drums came with a prohibitive price tag, so Kathy was not able to purchase one.
Michael mentioned to her that he would be interested in possibly donating one to our center. Kathy thanked him and took his information back to her supervisor, who in turn, emailed Michael. Sadly there was no reply and the drums disappeared from our thoughts.
Then on January 4, 2017(six months later) a package arrived via FedEx. And to our surprise, inside the box, were TWO bamboo acoustic drums with rubber mallets. Each drum was signed by Michael Thiele with his wish for our participants to enjoy! We thank Michael for his tremendous generosity and beautiful works of art. We will incorporate these drums into our sensory groups, our music classes and our contracted music therapy sessions.
In addition, there are others for whom we are grateful.
- On December 2, 2016, an individual at the Great Harvest Bread Company in Elm Grove left $25 for our group to purchase bread to take back to our center. We would like to thank her for her thoughtfulness and generosity.
- On December 29, 2016, a person at The Steaming Cup in downtown Waukesha (a local coffee shop our center visits often) gave a complementary cup of hot cocoa to John (one of our staff members) during a visit with our group. We’d also like to thank that anonymous person who provided a warm cup of generosity!
Sometimes we don’t get to actually see or we forget to acknowledge the generosity around us! I’m sure there are probably many more people who have done special things for us in ways we will never know. To all of those people, we say thank you—and we promise to "pass it on."
