North Shore teen comforts ill people with ‘caring cards’

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Morgan Richards

Updated: February 27, 2012 8:46AM

Fifteen-year-old Morgan Richards is setting out to make the days brighter for those in the hospital.

A freshman at North Shore Country Day, Morgan is blending her passions of writing and art with special “caring cards” that are distributed to patients who are hospitalized over the holidays.

The teen may know something about being in a new, uncertain place — she moved to Wilmette last August from St. Louis. Morgan also explained that she was looking for a way to give back in her new community, and looked no further than North Shore University Systems, where her mom, Melissa, is a vascular access nurse.

“She and I have had long conversations about patients being alone while in the hospital over holidays, Melissa said.

Together mother and daughter came up with the idea of sending a gift of ‘thinking of you over the holiday’ to each patient who was hospitalized over the holiday. The caring card will be distributed at each patient’s bedside table. One card is a detailed sketch of a knitted Christmas stocking. On the back is a little photo of Morgan letting patients know who sent the greeting.

Morgan started her holiday card effort to cover this most recent Christmas and Channukah seasons, but has plans to expand to other holidays.