Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences: Giving back ‘warms a little fire in your heart’

By In the Loop • December 6, 2018

Mayo Clinic is a unique place: the culture, the values, the people. "Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences" is a podcast that explores the experiences of Mayo Clinic staff as they navigate life personally and professionally. Individual experiences make each person unique, increase understanding of others and ultimately contribute to finding connections, belonging and inclusion at work.

In this episode, you'll hear Terri Scutt, Risk/Quality Management, and James Sprout, Environmental Services, discuss their experiences of giving back to their communities. Scutt works with a local school in Arizona where her family's gifts to the children may be the only gifts they receive during the holidays. They host a party for the children with crafts, gifts and even an appearance by Santa Claus. For Sprout, giving back also is a family affair. Nieces, nephews, brothers, cousins all get involved in giving back to those less fortunate. He and his family help with Feed My Starving Children, Alzheimer's Walk, Operation Christmas Child, volunteering at the animal shelter and more. Listen to their stories, and maybe it will warm a little fire in your heart to give back, not only during the holidays, but all year round.

Or read the transcript, edited for length and clarity, below.

SCUTT: Sometimes, for these children, that's the only Christmas they get. Giving back to the community came naturally to me. My parents did different things. They were always very giving.

NARRATOR: In this episode, Jim Sprout from our Environmental Services team in Lake City, Minnesota, and Terri Scutt, a claims adjuster for Quality in Arizona, share some examples of giving back and the importance of helping others.

SCUTT: One of my co-workers, his wife is a social worker out at one of the schools out here where the children are a little bit less fortunate than most. We were told the first year that we were going to adopt a classroom that this — the gifts that we give, the party we throw, the fun foods they eat, the candy we hand out, the fun things we do — might be the only thing these children get for the holiday.

We wrap it all and bring it to the classroom, and the kids are just so excited. We're there for about two hours, and they get to eat and do the craft item. Then they all have to sit quietly and Santa Claus walks through the room a lot of times. We start handing out the gifts, and when you hand them out, all the other kids cheer and laugh for the other kids. They clap their hands and really have a nice time.

SPROUT: Who wouldn't want to go to a party?

SCUTT: There you go. The kids are just so excited when we show up. And it's a lot of work for the teachers and the social workers. My co-worker's wife is a social worker there. She sets the whole thing up and is running around the school — all over the place — helping everyone out. It's very nice.

We have different volunteers every year. Some of them are the same. Some are different. Once they've done it, they love to come back. You know you can give the gifts all you want, donate the money and all that, but when you see the kids, that's what pulls the whole thing together.

SCUTT: You're inspired to give back to the community in a variety of ways. Can you tell us about all the different ways that you give back?

SPROUT: I've got a list here, but first of all, I'm going to have to blame part of my addiction here to my sister-in-law, Kate. She's kind of the ring leader of what we do now. She started off at the Feed My Starving Children. She participated in that in the [Twin] Cities at a local place up there. And then she wanted to try a mobile pack where you come to your community and you provide the space to hold the mobile pack. We do all the packing there.

You have to recruit volunteers to pack. You have to raise money to pay for the pack. This is the second year we've done this. The first year we did over 100,000 meals. That cost about $22,000.

SCUTT: So you're collecting money through volunteers and other type of opportunities to help pay for that throughout the year?

SPROUT: Yeah, you're hoping they come and pack. Then there are things that people have made — their crafts. We buy a bunch of it and then we mark the price up on it. The profit helps pay for the meals.

SCUTT: Do you have a large family involved out there that helps with all of this?

SPROUT: It is nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters. You draw the people, and once they've done it, they want to come back. It's a lot of fun.

SCUTT: That's what we find with the school. Once people help out, they're kind of addicted to it. They look forward to it. It makes them feel good about themselves.

SPROUT: I've seen pictures of where they've gone, some of the stuff, and the conditions they live in and you see that. The little bits you do send them, it makes quite a difference in their world.

SCUTT: One of my most memorable experiences was of one little girl. She wouldn't open the gift that we got her and I couldn't figure out why. I went to talk to her, and she said she actually asked for the gift for her brother. He had wanted a soccer ball, and she figured he wasn't going to get one, so she got it that way for him. That was so sweet. We bring extra gifts just in case, and we were able to give her a gift for herself as well. That kind of made her day.

SPROUT: She's thinking about him probably as much as she is herself.

Something that has hit our family is Alzheimer's. My mother just turned 90 now, and she's been battling that for 10 years, so I help at the Bluffs. It's a facility next to us. And we raise funds for the Alzheimer's walk every year. We make meals — sweet corn meals in the summer time. I sell tickets and bring meals to people. You come and buy a ticket, and I'll bring you a meal. Stuff like that — being involved in it is good.

SCUTT: It gets you out and about and meeting other people. Just what you learn from other people out there is quite nice. We learn a lot even just from the kids that we spend time with and their teachers about the school. For me, kids are energy. I think it's really important to be around the kids, too.

SPROUT: They'll keep you young.

SCUTT: They do. I'll tell you what. When we volunteers go home from a couple hours in a classroom, we are absolutely exhausted. I have a lot of respect for teachers out there. That's for sure.

SPROUT: Especially when they get you down on the floor to play with them and it's fine until you want to get up.

My three children and their spouses and then our grandchildren, we've each worked all year at coming up with something — a way to help somebody or volunteer to do something or donate something. And then when we get together for our own family Christmas, each of the families writes down on paper and shows what they did for the year. Then we put them up on a paper Christmas tree on the wall. This is what the family did: 'We bought this for some kids,' 'We walked some dogs at a shelter,' stuff like that. We keep them from year to year.

SCUTT: A new family tradition.

SPROUT: You get the young kids involved in it, and this is what part of Christmas is about, too.

You and I both have 24 hours in our day no matter what we do. If you could give a couple hours to help your neighbor or somebody down the street that just needs a helping hand once in a while, you find out how easy it is. It warms a little fire in your heart. Then it's easy to keep looking for something else.

NARRATOR: Whether it's donating funds or giving your time, helping someone else has countless benefits. Think about ways you can give back in your own communities and beyond.

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