Woman creates pouch to help ‘pay it forward’
From Submitted Reports December 6, 2012 1:58PM
Pay It Forward Pouches were created by Joliet resident Kathy Hrdlicka. The names of the twins, Keira and Lucas who were in the NICU at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, are embroided on one side. | submitted photo
Updated: January 8, 2013 6:11AM
JOLIET — If you had asked Kathy Hrdlicka of Joliet a month ago, “What on earth is a ‘Pay It Forward Pouch?’” she probably would have shrugged her shoulders and replied, “I have no idea.”
But since then Hrdlicka has designed and created what is possibly the first such pouch, in response to a friend’s request.
Mary Breslin of Roselle recently wrote a children’s book of rhymes and designated the proceeds to the neonatal intensive care unit of Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where her twin grandchildren spent the first month of their lives in 2010.
After presenting a check to the hospital at Thanksgiving, Breslin gave hospital representatives the pouch created by her longtime friend with a small gift card inside.
“The idea behind the pouch is to offer its contents to someone in the NICU who is having a bad day — could be a nurse, an orderly, a distraught parent,” Breslin explained.
Then the recipient could spend it or pass it on to someone who seems to be in greater need of a boost that day.
When Hrdlicka set about to make the pouch, she chose baby-blanket soft material — pink on one side and blue on the other. Then she embroidered “Pay It Forward” on one side, the names of her friend’s twin grandchildren on the other, and finished it off with a drawstring.
Breslin intends to send a gift card each month to keep the pouch filled and to further the concept of passing along something to brighten someone else’s day.
“I think this would work in a lot of different settings,” Breslin said. “At the office, in a factory or warehouse, at church, senior care centers — it has endless possibilities.”
Meanwhile, Hrdlicka, a member of St. Mary Immaculate Parish in Plainfield and the grandmother of 11, has turned her attention to other pressing holiday projects that will keep her sewing machine humming for weeks to come.
