A young man’s gift to 30 sick children at Nelson Hospital has reduced many of their mothers to tears.
The anonymous man, described by staff at Nelson Hospital to be in his early 20s, sold his car and with the money it raised bought Christmas cards and $20 vouchers to the Richmond Mall. He visited the children’s ward at the hospital about three weeks ago and asked the staff on reception to give them to 30 families.
Hospital receptionist Sherryl Cole says he wanted no thank you and would not even give his surname. “I think everyone’s been quite overwhelmed by it, particularly when people are in here with sick kids, to know that someone out there, a young guy, cared so much is just fantastic.”
But Nelson Weekly was able to track down the man who said he just wanted to do something nice.
Each card was handwritten by the man and read: “Merry Christmas, get well soon” and was signed “Shayne”.
Stoke mother Felicity Watson says the gift brought her to tears. “It’s such a stressful time when you’re in hospital with a young baby, and when the nurse came in with this, I just burst into tears straight away. It’s so nice, such a nice thing for someone to do.”
She says she is planning to use the voucher to buy something that her son Decklyn will be able to keep for a number of years.
“When he grows up I want him to be able to look at it and know that someone cared about him when he was so young.”
Sherryl says most of the mothers had a similar reaction to Felicity. “Most were really overwhelmed, it meant a lot to the families.”
The man says he came up with the idea while selling an old car on Trademe. He said that the money raised would go to charity and decided to give it to sick children after hearing about the paediatric ward from a friend who is a trainee nurse. The car was bought for $300 and he then went to see Richmond Mall manager David Hill and told him what he wanted to do.
“I said I’m going to split this up into vouchers and give it to the kids and he just said he’d match me dollar for dollar.”
So the $300 worth of vouchers turned into $600.
Sherryl says staff at the hospital would like to say thank you to the man and let him know he made a difference this Christmas. “He’s restored our faith in humanity, especially for a guy his age. Young men get a lot of bad press but this was just great.”
Felicity says the man is like a “Christmas angel”.
“I want to say thank you to him, I asked the nurse if he gave an address so I could write to him but he didn’t so hopefully he’ll read this and realise how much it meant to us.”
When told of the reaction from the mothers, the man says it was what he was hoping for.
“That’s definitely the sort of happiness that I wanted to get out of it. It was $20 for the kids for Christmas and hopefully they’ll get some enjoyment out of it.”
He says he still wants to remain anonymous. “It’s something someone has done as a random act of kindness. If people know who it is they think they sort of owe you for it,” he says.
