My Life

The American Heart Association

Ask for a donation and then you’ll really see what people are made of!

My company chose to support The American Heart Association for the month of February.

You’ve all seen them. The little hearts that you donate $1.00 and get to write your name on the line and then it gets stuck somewhere with all the others for the whole world to see?

Well, my store received 200 of those little hearts to get donations for. I put them out on the counter by the registers on Monday. Wednesday, all the hearts were still laying there in their neat little stack, untouched!

I knew I was going to be running register for a few hours that day, so I decided to make a point with my cashiers! (You should know that Justin can be quite competitive! He will never let me out do him...so I figured if I could make a big dent in them, he’d take care of the rest.)

I was going to try to sell at least half of them in six hours. I know, I know...That sounds like a big feat. But I’m the type that when I set my mind to do something, I can be pretty aggressive at getting the job done!

I took over the register at about 7:00am. I sold like ten in the first few minutes. This is going to be a piece of cake. I thought to myself.

As time went on, and people woke up...excuses started flying!

I had one customer come in to pay for $15.00 worth of gas with a hundred dollar bill. I made my “Do you want to donate $1.00 to the American Heart Association?” spill. He flat out said no! I just smiled and thanked him anyway.

Shortly there after a customer came in and I did my spill again, the response was “Maybe tomorrow, I don’t have the money today. Oh, I also want one of those $1 scratch of lottery tickets and one of those and...Oh, just give me one of each of your $1 tickets.”

“Yes ma’am, that will be $7.00 total in lottery tickets? Is that ok?”

“Oh yeah, that’s fine.” Kid you not, girl won $500.00 and still couldn’t afford a buck for the American Heart Association.

Then there was the guy that gives at home, and the one that his office is doing the same thing...and the one that said his wife makes all the donations for their household...on and on and on.

I think my favorite one was; This guy says “Yeah, I’ll do it.” I put the heart in front of him for him to write his name on and he says “Oh no, I’m not going to do it if I have to fill out paperwork!” I said, “How 'bout I just put a smiley face on it for ya?” That was cool with him.

The manager of my sister store (just up the road) and I were comparing notes. She did her spill to one lady and the response went like this:

“I give enough! I’ve had three heart surgeries!” She proceeded to pull her blouse down so Kim was able to see the scars more clearly. She went on and on about her deductible, the cost of the surgeries...Kim thought the woman would never leave!

Note here; Now, I’m no rocket scientist! But I think if I had heart disease, (and had already had to go through three surgeries) I’m pretty sure I’d want the foundation to have as much money as possible for research for a cure! Maybe I’m just weird that way. Anyway...

There were others that were generous, caring and giving. Some even went back to their cars for change so they could donate more.

By 1:00pm I had sold fifty hearts. Wasn’t quite the quota I had set for myself, but it was better than nothing! Justin came in and saw all the hearts plastered everywhere. He wasn’t really happy. He was hoping someone else was going to take care of all this, he didn’t want to have to participate. I had pushed him into a corner.

He went through his shift keeping track of how many he had sold so he could make sure he out did me. He wasn’t fairing too well, but was trying to maintain.

I clocked out to go home around 4:00pm. He asked if he could take a quick break before I left him for the rest of the evening. I said sure. I took back over the register and in that couple of minutes, I sold three more hearts!

The next morning I pulled the numbers. Between us, we had sold 102 hearts for the American Heart Association. I thought that was awesome! Of course, I also loved relishing in the fact that, while Justin's shift had sold fifty two hearts and my shift had only sold fifty. Three of the hearts sold on Justin's shift were sold by me! (Gotcha friend! Sorry, but I still beat you!)

The next day I was in meetings all day. When I came in to do the paperwork Friday morning. I found the rest of the group had only moved nine hearts during the entire 24 hours. I jumped back on the band wagon and sold thirty in two and a half hours. When I left the store today, (three days after I started this campaign) I was saddened to realize there were still thirty two hearts on the counter.

Not to worry though, Justin is working tonight!