Great ideas come with a big light bulb going off over your head, accompanied by the sweet voices of a choir of angels, right?

Wrong.

Just ask Debbie Briggs, LPN, Hamilton Warsaw Clinic/Blessing Health Keokuk Clinic. She had a great idea two years ago and didn’t know it.

“I would like to say it was a premeditated thought. But it wasn’t,” Debbie said with a smile in her voice.

In November 2019, demand for care was high at Hamilton Warsaw Clinic, but it was Debbie’s work anniversary, and her clinic manger, the late Kim Krieg, and Blessing’s Director of Rural Health, Gina Genenbacher, wanted to take Debbie to dinner and also have her select her service award.

Exhausted after a day’s work, Debbie politely said no, but offered another thought. She wanted to donate the value of the service award for which she was eligible to the Employee Crisis Fund.

“I am truly blessed,” Debbie stated. “I love doing what I do. That’s a reward within itself. I get paid for doing what I love to do. That’s another reward within itself. So, if that money can help elsewhere, that’s great.”

Not only did Debbie’s leaders arrange for the donation of the value of her service award to the Employee Crisis Fund, the wheels began turning to take Debbie’s idea health system-wide.

Blessing worked with the vendor of its service award program and now every Blessing Health System employee who is eligible for a service award has the option of applying all or some of the points they earn for their award to any specific purpose fund of the Blessing Foundation, including the Employee Crisis Fund. Employee donations average $125 every couple of months through this process.

“This is a win-win. It’s a win for patients and employees in need, and for the Blessing Foundation,” said Ann Awerkamp Dickon, administrative director, Blessing Foundation. “We are so pleased Debbie asked her leaders about the possibility all those month ago,”

Debbie was pretty pleased herself when she learned of the service award donation option.

“My heart was overjoyed. It was great to see something wonderful happen,” she concluded.

Amy Vonderhaar is involved in the service award donation process through her role as Senior Accountant, Fiscal Services.

“The generosity of Blessing Health System employees is an amazing thing.”