Health Care Appreciation Night - Gillete Children's

0:00You're listening to the official Minnesota wild pond cast presented by Acresure. All right, wild fans were between periods of the wild and flyers. Kevin Faulness with you from the Bob Courage Radio Center and we'll get back to the action in tonight's game in a moment. We first want to introduce you to Andrea Stays, vice president of external affairs at Gillette Children's, fancy title, even better person. She's here to talk about healthcare appreciation night tonight at Grand Casino Arena, first in foremost, always great to talk to Andrea, how are things in your world? They're great. Yeah, thank you, Kevin, for having us. So excited to be here tonight supporting the wild and really grateful for this partnership. Any chance we get a chance to salute healthcare and everything you guys do for this world and at Gillette Children's, we got to take the opportunity to do it. And like we said, tonight healthcare appreciation night. Why is it important for Gillette to be a part of this night? Everyone knows somebody that works in healthcare, whether it's a physician, a nurse, someone

1:02working in environmental services. These colleagues play such a vital role in keeping our communities healthy. And at Gillette, we care for kids who have complex and rare conditions and we love celebrating and supporting our colleagues who care for them. Just as important, we want to celebrate everyone in our state who provides healthcare. These are our friends, our family members, our neighbors working all hours of the day, every day to keep our community safe and healthy. Thank you all. One thing that I've noticed in working with Gillette, and I'm watching the partnership here, it is a partner. It's not just a sponsorship. You guys work hand in hand with the Minnesota Wild and it seems to be a genuine relationship. Can you talk to that and how important that is? Yeah, we are so lucky and so appreciative to work closely with the wild over the years. I think one of the best parts of our partnership is when players and naughty come to our St. Paul Hospital campus to visit kids and families and staff.

2:04It is so fun to see the reaction of the kids and I know the parents enjoy it as well. It really lifts their spirits. I think our organization's missions are so closely aligned and we really appreciate that the wild is such a wonderful community member. You can see how important it is to their organization to be part of the community and Gillette is just grateful and lucky to be a beneficiary of that. Now you mentioned naughty. That's one thing, but to have the captain of the Minnesota Wild, the long time captain, the long serving captain of the Minnesota Wild, Jared Spurgeon, an official Gillette and Baster, I understand he makes regular visits to see the patients. That has to be a huge boost. I mean, it's one thing to see. He's already walked through the doors and that's great. He puts a smile on everyone's face, but the captain, the guy that gets things done on the ice, that must be pretty cool for these families as well. Yeah, it is. And not only for the families, but also for our team. I think we're all a little starstruck every time he comes, even though he's been coming

3:06here for a while. I would say our families and our staff have a warm, strong bond with him. He visits us every couple months and really has connected with some of our regular patients over the years. He spends a lot of time talking to the kids. He's in natural around kids. And in Minnesota, of course, hockey is our sport here. And so many of our patients and families and staff love hockey, follow the wild, and Jared is just such a great ambassador for them. And I've used this joke before. He's relatively there same size. So they can look him directly at eye and think, this is an NHL player, but you never know it. He might be your size, but he is one of the best defensemen in the national hockey league. Now prior to the game, what an emotional moment. 13-year-old Sofia. Part of the, did the let's play hockey, got things underway before the wild took on the Philadelphia Flyers. I know she was gravely injured in that annunciation shooting in Minneapolis last August.

4:06Terrible moment. It's nice to see that she's come out on the other side. She's here with us tonight. What's that? How emotional is it to know that she's got through it? And you guys were a big part of her journey to get back and better. Yeah, we were really honored to care for Sofia and her family. And you're right, it is so emotional. And we are so happy to see how well she's doing. She's terrific. Her family's terrific. I know our team members in the stands tonight are cheering for her and are very moved to see her. We're all cheering for her. And I just want to point out to that, you know, it's health care appreciation night. And that's about all health care providers here and want to really show appreciation for our colleagues that responded to the annunciation shooting last summer. And we just feel very grateful to be part of this community. We're talking to Andrea Stays, again, VP of External Affairs at Gillette's Children's. It is health care appreciation night tonight at Grand Casino, LaRena.

5:08For fans listening that don't know a lot about Gillette, what kind of specialized care do you provide for kids recovering from serious life changing injuries? Yeah, so a lot of people don't know this much, but we have been in existence for almost 130 years. And so we have well over a century of experience providing specialized care to kids that have complex medical conditions. So that includes things like cerebral palsy, dramatic brain injury, scoliosis, things that impact their musculoskeletal and neurologic function. We are experts in their care and really deliver the highest quality clinical care will also continuously advancing research to improve their treatments. We are super proud and passionate about our work here and would invite anyone that doesn't know us to come visit us, check us out. Outstanding. Well, this is great stuff. Enjoy the rest of the night. We're taking time here on a wonderful evening as we celebrate all the great health care

6:09workers. Keep up the great work at Gillette Children's and we'll talk soon, Andrea. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. There you go. Andrea stays the VP of external affairs at Gillette Children's. We'll take a break and then we'll have more from St. Paul after this. You're listening to Wild Hockey, presented by Grand Casino. The best place to go for all your Minnesota Wild Audio needs is the official Minnesota Wild podcast presented by Acresure. Everything Minnesota Wild related, including highlights, press conferences, players, coaches, general managers and more, it's available on the official Minnesota Wild podcast presented by Acresure. It's all just a click away at wild.com slash podcast.