Guest Columnist: Krystal Mantai Leads Bake Sale for Uvalde Counseling Services

GUEST COLUMNIST

KRYSTAL MANTEI,

Director of Clinical Care,

Methodist Hospital

After the tragic event that took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, I felt hurt and scared that something so horrible can happen so close to home. I have two little ones and I just couldn’t even comprehend what those parents and families were going through. Being in the healthcare field, I always have felt a need to help out others. During this tragedy, I struggled with a sense of helplessness because an entire community was in need and I didn’t know what I could do about it.

I posted on my unit’s GroupMe to see if others felt the same and wanted to help in some form or another. I immediately got responses back that others would love to help give back to the community. I reflected on my upbringing when our families would often have bake sales when we needed to raise money for school trips and community support. I wanted to find an accessible outlet for our team so anyone who wanted to participate could. I brought up the idea to host a bake sale at our ICU leadership meeting, and each ICU and PCU unit was excited to get involved and donate to the cause. My fellow team members were sharing with me that they knew someone who was affected by the incident or that they had family members personally impacted. Some even had tears in their eyes sharing this with me. It was evident how appreciative they were that we were doing something to help and even more so heart-warming to hear how many people were immediately coming up with ideas for the bake sale. We had people talking about the types of cupcakes they could bring or who they could ask to help bake some cookies. Who doesn’t love brownies or cake pops!? We met with the FNS team and quickly arranged the logistics to successfully host this fundraiser. We held the bake sale on June 7, I was honestly blown away by how much we sold just during the breakfast rush. We ended up raising over $2,000 and I could not be prouder of everyone who helped. We chose to give the donations to Bluebonnet Children’s Advocacy Center because they were providing long-term counseling services to those children and families involved in the tragedy. I am so glad that I decided to turn my feelings into action. We were able to make a great and positive impact with the help of all of our teams.