Kim\nStemple is an individual teacher who, in 2012, found herself tethered to an IV\nin a Boston hospital. In the hospital, Kim Stemple received the treatment for\none of several diseases. She got diagnosed with conditions such as lupus and\nlymphoma. Kim had a rare mitochondrial disease that causes progressive mental\nand physical deterioration. Kim Stemple was typically exuberant, but she was\nsliding into depression. One of her friends gave her a medal and asked her to\nensure that she is aware of the silent signs of lupus that she should not\nignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Kim got sick, she had been a marathon runner. Kim Stemple had got the medal from her racing partner, who had just completed a half marathon in Las Vegas. Her racing partner had hoped that the memento would act as a vicarious pick-me-up. The souvenir that he had given her worked like a charm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\nKim Stemple hung the medal from her IV pole in the hospital, some patients told\nher that they wanted the same medals too. This event got Kim Stemple thinking\nthat giving someone a medal is the best way to provide a positive message.\nStemple\u2019s charity was born after this event in the hospital. Stemple\u2019s charity,\n\u201cWe Finish Together\u201d started working with this motive. The charity collects\nmedals from strangers, marathon runners, dancers, swimmers, singers, and even\nspell-bee winners. After this, they donate medals to all sorts of people in\nneed – who are suffering through some disease, some health conditions, or\ngeneral difficulties in life. In an interview, Kim Stemple said that these are\nmeaningful acts of kindness that don\u2019t cost a cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recipients\nof these recycled medals<\/strong> include patients in the\nhospital, residents of homeless shelters, and veterans. The whole process of\ngiving a medal starts by donor writing a personalized note on the ribbon. Kim\nsays that this gesture provides the recipient with a connection kind of a feeling.\nShe further says, when people who are\nsuffering through something in their lives receive a medal, they get to know\nthat someone is there who cares about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So,\ncan a single medal really make a difference? Well, Yes! Joan Mussara, a patient\nof pulmonary fibrosis, shared her experience. She said, \u201cwhen I opened my\npackage containing a recycled medal <\/strong>and\nthe notes of positive & warm thoughts, I was overwhelmed.\u201d Joan also wrote\nto Stemple, \u201cwhen I received my package containing a medal, I was sitting on my\ncouch breathing with the help of an oxygen cannula because my lungs had\ndeteriorated so badly. This medal and the notes of warm thoughts meant so much\nto me, and I felt like I am not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kim Stemple is an individual teacher who, in 2012, found herself tethered to an IV in a Boston hospital. In the hospital, Kim Stemple received the treatment for one of several diseases. She got diagnosed with conditions such as lupus and lymphoma. Kim had a rare mitochondrial disease that causes progressive mental and physical deterioration. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":2976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mentally"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3463,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions\/3463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highly-healthy.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}