Contact: Sara Quale
Sara.Quale@BannerHealth.com

LOVELAND, CO (Feb. 5, 2018) When Jessie Robideau was 12 years old, she was diagnosed with a severe form of Hodgkin Lymphoma and was told she had only two weeks to live. She was put on an aggressive treatment plan where she underwent chemotherapy for 20 hours on, four hours off, five days a week. Those four hours were Jessie’s only opportunity to escape and be a kid. The first time she got out of her hospital room she went to the hospital gift shop and bought a tin of candy. It was the first time she was able to forget that her hair was falling out, that she could barely walk down the hallway, or that her mom was crying. It became a special place in Jessie’s heart. As an escape from the treatment, the gift shop became Jesse’s retreat.

In 2013 when Jessie moved to Colorado, she saw an opening for a retail supervisor at McKee Medical Center in Loveland. She knew she had to apply and wanted to be able to give back to comfort patients and their loved ones in the same way staff and volunteers at the gift shop help her when she was little.

Today, Jessie is still at McKee’s gift shop as the retail supervisor and is helping with the renovation, funded in full by McKee volunteers. Jessie and Janice Greeno, McKee volunteer resources manager, have worked tirelessly with Colorado-based Magnolia River Manufacturing Corp. to create a space incorporating the beauty of the Colorado outdoors. The new gift shop exudes warmth, a healing natural environment and of course, the opportunity for retail therapy.

The new gift shop will re-open Thursday, Feb. 8. Please let me know if you would like to tour the new gift shop or schedule an interview with Jessie or Janice. They also can share information about hospital projects the money raised in the gift shop has funded.