Schooled in Generosity

Student Organizes Drive to Deliver Care Packages to UNM Hospital Employees

For eight months now, Zane Anderson, 13, has made it his mission to let health care workers know they’re appreciated, putting together hundreds of care packages that get delivered to University of New Mexico Hospital employees.

He was inspired to start making the care packages last September when he joined the National Junior Honor Society at his school, Pecos Cyber Academy. He heard about the extra stress the COVID-19 pandemic had put on medical staff across the country and wanted to do something to help on a local level.

“I sort of saw that as an opportunity to jump into a service project,” he said. “I wanted to express my appreciation to them.”

With the help of teachers and his former classmates at Dennis Chavez Elementary, various church groups around town and employees from Sandia National Laboratories, where his dad works, Zane has sought and organized donations and volunteers to help put together the care packages – which contain snacks, drinks and handwritten thank-you notes.

After Zane puts everything together in brown paper bags, he hands them off to the UNMH Employee Well-Being Team where they deliver them throughout the hospital.

“We’ve been focusing primarily on delivering the packages to any unit that has COVID patients or has a high census – meaning that we don’t have any more beds and are possibly working over capacity,” said Melissa McConnell-Hand, a well-being development specialist who helps deliver the care packages to hospital staff every month.

“When we would take the packages to the different floors, our staff would read the notes and some of them would cry. It can be stressful, and that note from the heart makes all the difference.”

After months of putting the care packages together – about 100 per month – Zane was presented with a certificate of appreciation on April 26 by hospital CEO Kate Becker. The acknowledgement, he said, made him feel “overwhelmed – but in a good way.”

I didn’t know this was going to be such a big deal when I started it. It’s really helped me probably just as much as it’s helped anyone who’s received one of the care packages

— Zane Anderson