The impact of one small act

SANDPOINT — A birthday gift slipped to a resident whose family lives far away. A Christmas present for residents alone without family nearby. Wood delivered, chopped and stack for a resident’s wife without enough to get through the winter.

Each day, Valley Vista Care Center’s Sheila Balison saw fellow employees going above and beyond to make residents comfortable, feel loved and have the highest quality of care.

When the skilled nursing facility received its best health and welfare survey it has ever gotten, Balison and facility directors wanted to throw a party to let all the employees know their efforts are appreciated and were the foundation for the survey’s results.

And then, inspiration struck.

A few months earlier, Balison had been talking to friend Bruce Pedersen, who had a family member at the facility for end-of-life care and he’d mentioned a project that he and friend, Ron Hornbaker, had dreamed up — ButterflyCoins.org.

“The concept is behind it is the butterfly effect of kindness in that one small act can impact the universe forever,” Balison said. “Just throwing that pebble into the river and seeing the positive effects from it.”

The coins are a perfect representation of Valley Vista’s own culture and random acts of kindness, Balison said. The facility has purchased 50 of the coins to hand out as part of its staff appreciation efforts.

“(We want to recognize) love and kindness in our facility, within our residents, within our co-workers, to build camaraderie and recognize the things that people do above and beyond every single day,” she said. “Every day there are stories of people going above and beyond.”

With the Butterfly Coins, and Operation Butterfly Effect, Valley Vista will be gifting the coins to staff members whenever they are caught in an act of kindness and going above and beyond. After the coin is registered and the employee shares how they got the coin, they also can share who they are gifting it to and why.

“The stories of each coin of each act of kindness as it gets passed forward so you can track the story of kindness forever so it’s like a pay it forward kind of thing,” said Balison.

The first coin went to Valley Vista’s employee of the year, Stephanie Kluver, who is “the epitome of love and kindness” and brings a positive energy to work every day. From dressing up on Halloween and ensuring residents have a great day, to coming dressed as a snowman to brighten everyone’s mood.

Another coin was given to Christy Cleveland, the facility’s dietary assistant manager, for her role in preparing a special anniversary dinner for a resident who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Knowing he likely didn’t have long to live, and that the anniversary would be the couple’s last, the staff was determined to make it special. Someone got a dozen red roses and a white rose as well as gifts for the man’s wife, a therapist brought in a handmade card so he could write a special note to his wife and Cleveland came up with a special menu, including sparkling cider in champagne glasses.

When the man suggested giving the coin to someone involved, Balison presented it to Cleveland. It wasn’t long, however, before Cleveland sent it off to Ellen DeGeneres because of her own acts of kindness and philanthropy.

“I told her that worked for nonprofits for a long time, that that’s where my heart was and that I had the opportunity to work with Sheila a lot and that paying it forward really is something that is huge here,” Cleveland said of why she chose DeGeneres to send her coin to. “It is ALL acts of kindness. We have residents who have no family that come see that at all and the staff goes above and beyond on a daily basis.”

Knowing that, knowing her co-workers, Cleveland wrote that she couldn’t just pick one person.

“I told her I couldn’t possibly pick one single person so we had decided to do something big for all of the staff and instead send the coin to her so that she could pay it forward on a larger scale,” she added.

Balison said she’s excited about Operation Butterfly Effect and the chance to recognize employees in a more permanent, tangible way.

“There’s a lot dedication here and everybody works together,” she said. “It is, and I really believe, in our facility that there’s nobody who is more important than anyone else.

“It takes everybody and I feel like that, while we have our kudos board where we recognize each other, I wanted to do something extra-special and something that could be recognized beyond just a monthly kudos board. Felt that this really fit with the culture we’ve created in our facility along with Bruce’s idea of paying it forward.”