PORTLAND, Ore. — Right now, a little self-care is more than a little important. We all need to find ways to de-stress more than ever, especially those who are working endless hours to care for others.
That's why a Southeast Portland man set out on a mission to create care packages for health care workers at local hospitals.
“It’s fun when your ideas kind of land like that,” Aaron Hanson said.
It started with a simple idea and a tweet.
Hanson just wanted to help his local health care workers who are risking their lives to save others. So, he took to social media and asked Portland businesses how they could help make it happen.
“It was one of those things, you know, I put it out there and the universe connected it and made it happen,” he said.
Hanson’s tweet turned into 150 care packages with over 2,000 Portland food, beverage and self-care products being donated to our local healthcare heroes at OHSU, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, and Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center.
Hanson saw people delivering meals to health care workers and wondered what else he could do to show support.
“That our front-line workers know that they’re not alone in this and that we’re supporting them and that we’re there for them and that we’re grateful for them is just the thing that I was hoping to achieve in this,” he said.
On Monday, Hanson delivered the goodies with everything from nourishing body balm from Portland’s Captn’ Coconut to tasty treats from Ground Up PDX.
“So a full range of products,” Hanson said.
Small businesses are a big part of what makes Portland so great. Right now, many are really struggling because of the pandemic, but that didn’t stop them from stepping up to help when Hanson came calling.
“The reoccurring theme, over and over again, was, 'We’re really hurting or, our business is on hold, the supply chain is being impacted so we’re not able to produce at the volume that we wanted to. Despite all that we want to get involved and we want to find ways to help our community,'" Hanson said.
Hanson sees just how important some self-care is for our health care workers in his own home. His wife, Taylor, is a registered nurse in the emergency department at OHSU.
“They come home and they’re just so tired and need something,” Hanson said. “So, knowing that they’re not doing it alone.”