I, like many of you, receive dozens of emails everyday. Some are work related, some are spam, and many are from friends passing on a good joke, a request for volunteers and/or donations, or material not suited for this site. Recently I received an email which caught my attention.
My friend Tom, a regular text/emailer sent me a message that he forwarded from a co-worker. The message read:
PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING
FOR YOUR INFO:
> >> This is a great video. See the link below.
> >> You have to watch this video from Portland, Oregon
> >>
> >> Here’s the story behind the video.
> >>
> >> “Our daughter-in-law, Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created,
> >> directed and choreographed this in Portland last week for her
> >> Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer
> >> awareness.
> >>
> >> I don’t know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to
> >> participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot
> >> of fun doing it.
> >>
> >> When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a
> >> huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free
> >> mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It’s an
> >> easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who
> >> hasn’t been touched by breast cancer?
> >>
> >> Ann Somers
> >>
> >> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw>
> >>
> >> Please forward this in honor of all the women we know and all
> >> we have lost.
> >> Thanks.
Regular readers will know that I recently lost a longtime friend who succumbed to cancer that started out as breast cancer. (Read her story here.) Since Tom is a trusted friend, I decided to follow the link. The link took me to a You Tube video posted last November called Pink Glove Dance For Breast Cancer Awareness. The video shows employees of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland Oregon, from janitors to surgeons, dancing to the tune Down by Jay Sean while wearing pink gloves. It is a fun video to watch and certainly has done well promoting breast cancer awareness since it has received over six million hits since its posting.
Unfortunately, According to Snopes.com, Medline had no intention of making a large contribution to the hospital once the video received one million hits.
The Pink Glove Dance does, however, have its own web site and the story is a great one. Here is the story behind the video from www.pinkglovedance.com:
The Story Behind the Making of the Video
Why would perfectly sane and incredibly busy hospital workers agree to dance in a YouTube video viewed around the world? The short answer is to get people talking about breast cancer. But there’s more to the story. It all began back at the Medline Corporate office.
As the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies, Medline is focused on helping to improve lives. So it’s a natural extension of our corporate mission for us to help save lives through the early detection of breast cancer. (visit www.medline.com/breast-cancer-awareness for details).
In the past five years, Medline has donated almost a half million dollars to provide education and free mammograms to those in need and continues to make contributions every year. Medline hosts several breast cancer awareness breakfast forums throughout the year to help spread the word about the importance of early detection.
As a way to extend Medline’s breast cancer awareness campaign, we developed a pink glove called Generation Pink™. Gloves are also the first point of contact between the healthcare worker and the patient. And, the fact the glove is pink, we hoped would get people talking about breast cancer. When the gloves were launched in October, Medline committed to donating $1 of every case purchased to the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fund mammograms for individuals who cannot afford them. But we needed another idea to help spread the word. So, we asked, “What if we were to film a video of healthcare workers dancing in pink gloves? I wonder if we could produce a viral video?” Little did we know. . .
The first step was finding a hospital that would partner with Medline to create the video. Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR., part of the Providence Health System, a 26-hospital system spread over the northwest area of the country and a close friend of Medline’s, was at the top of the list.
A few phone calls later, the hospital enthusiastically agreed to participate in the video. The next few days were a blur of action. The hospital sent out a call for employee volunteers to dance in the video. Back at Medline, the wheels were in motion. Jay Sean’s hit song “Down” was selected for the video and discussions took place to coordinate which areas of the hospital would be filmed, the number of staff participating in each shot and the overall plan of events.
The Making of the Video
A week later, Emily Somers, Medline’s product manager for gloves and who also just happens to have a dance background, was at the hospital with a few boxes of pink gloves and a film crew. More than 200 employees of all ages, departments and skill levels
answered the call to participate.“We had so many people who said, ‘You know, this disease has touched my life. I want to be a part of it,’” said Martie Moore, the chief nursing officer at Providence St. Vincent.
The filming took two days. Emily spent countless hours teaching the volunteers basic dance moves to showcase the pink gloves. In an environment filled with sickness and gloom, she brought incredible energy to the set, helping every one of the caregivers express their great heart and spirit. From lab technicians and the kitchen help to surgical teams, they all let loose, dancing from place to place in the hospital.
Watching this video made me smile as I was reminded of the caring and kindness that still exists in our country. Amidst all the bad news with which we are bombarded each day, and I am guilty of spreading some of that bad news in this blog, it is nice to hear of something good. I hope you enjoyed the video while thinking about the message behind it.
