During the on-going pandemic, long-term care residents have been separated from their loved ones including the holiday season.
KX learned about one woman’s brightly colored mission to wrap up some love for those very people.
Mary Kaye Hjelle’s is used to visiting her mom every day at her nursing home, but since COVID-19 hit things haven’t been the same.
“We’d watch, you know, shows together and just spend time together. And so in North Dakota of course we were locked out for– until June I believe it was. And so window visits was all we really had,” said Hjelle.
It’s her mom and everyone else going through the same thing her family is that made her want to bring “Hugs for the Holidays” to North Dakota, a campaign to create awareness for those living in long-term care communities unable to spend the holidays with their loved ones.
“We’re asking families to display a hot pink ribbon on their front railing, mailbox, trees, wherever possible that just creates that awareness that this family is not going to be seeing a loved one or hugging on a loved one during the holidays this year,” said Hjelle.
She says she discovered the nationwide campaign one day on Facebook through the Caregiver Compromise page and that’s when she knew she had to bring it to her home state.
Now, why a hot pink ribbon you may be wondering? Well, it was chosen because it’ll stand out from people’s typical red and green holiday decorations.
