We recently connected with Rachel Bennett and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
The idea for Caring by Card was born in March 2020, during the frightening and uncertain early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I watched the news with a heavy heart, I saw nursing home residents isolated from their loved ones—no visitors allowed, many passing away alone. Families could only wave through glass windows, trying to connect in the face of unimaginable distance.
I often thank God that my mother passed away in late 2016—before the pandemic—so I could be by her side. My beloved mother, Shaunna, was a widow, a former journalist, and a college instructor. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at just 56. I became her caregiver throughout my 20s and 30s, and when she was 59, I made the heartbreaking decision to place her in a nursing home. I visited her every week, bringing love, hugs, kisses, and handwritten notes of encouragement to brighten her walls. I had the sacred honor of lying beside her as she took her final breath in hospice. Knowing that, during the pandemic, countless people were lying in nursing homes—lonely, frightened, and dying without loved ones by their side—brought me immense grief.
After watching a new segment, I just knew I had to do something. I asked my boyfriend at the time to go with me to Michael’s craft store and bought paper, markers, stickers, feathers, pom-poms, glue, sequins and started making cards. We got home and started making cards and right then, Caring by Card was born.
I shared Caring by Card all over Facebook, Instagram and via email and within the first week, hundreds of people got in touch with me from around the United States as well as Scotland, Italy, Japan, asking where they could send the cards. It took off immediately.
I was named “New Yorker of the Week” by NY1 News https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/nyer-of-the-week/2020/08/03/new-yorker-of-the-week–rachel-bennett and interviewed by Spectrum News in Albany near where I grew up https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/capital-region/news/2020/05/17/glens-falls-native-keeps-mother-s-memory-alive-during-pandemic.
Caring by Card sponsors different nursing homes each month and inspires volunteers to send homemade cards to nursing home residents to help them feel seen, loved and remembered. To date, our volunteers have sent over 10,500 cards to nursing home residents around the United States. We have sponsored a nursing home in all 50 states and sent cards to 109 nursing homes! I also organize musical concerts in nursing homes. I could never do any of this without my amazing staff Ashley Shylanski, Laura Marine, Maya Gleser and Eric Jacobus and Kelly Couturier, who have volunteered to serve as Board members to help carry out Caring by Card’s mission.
Can you tell me what you’re proud of?
I’m most proud that Maria Shriver and her team recently did a feature story on Caring by Card in The Sunday Paper! She’s a hero of mine so it meant a great deal to be recognized and celebrated by her. https://www.mariashriversundaypaper.com/inspiration-from-the-road-rachel-bennett/
Also, that through the support of the Lawyers Alliance for New York, Lowenstein Sandler LLP and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, we have applied for non-profit status. We are excited to share this good news with our partners, volunteers, corporations, cardmaking companies, philanthropists and supporters to help us raise funds in order to further grow our mission!
It’s a profound act to make a card and write an uplifting note in this busy, digital age. There is something wholesome, healing, and sweet about sending love and remembrance in a card to someone who needs it and will appreciate it. We also tell people that you can buy store bought cards if they don’t have the time to make cards, though a homemade card is just so special.
We’ve had several well-known companies reach out to us including large stationary stores, universities and a Hollywood production company as well as schools, churches, Boy and Girl Scout troops and thousands of individual volunteers all making and sending homemade cards to our featured nursing homes.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The most effective strategy for growing my clientele is a consistent social media presence. My team posts every Monday and Wednesday, so our audience can always expect that regularity.
Also, we always thank our volunteers who make cards on social media, so they feel seen and appreciated and post testimonials from Activity Directors who work at the nursing homes when they let us know how the residents enjoyed the cards. This is especially meaningful to our volunteers. We conduct monthly meetings where my team meets on Zoom to brainstorm and strategize on how to inspire participants and increase followers.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn is that running a business has to be hard or scary. I come from a family of journalists and academics. The implied message was that business could not co-exist with art and social justice. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that when you love what you do, believe in it fully and know that you are helping people through it, the right opportunities and people come to support you. As Joseph Campbell said, “ Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
I also have no shame in reaching out to people who are more successful than I am and asking them to teach me. I ask a lot of questions. I am eager to learn. I ask for advice, resources, referrals, and people’s time to show me things. I also watch a lot of Youtube videos! I believe where there is a desire to know, there is an answer. You just have to be hungry enough to want to find the answer.I’d just like to close with a few words from my friend Nancy, who lives in a nursing home. She’s only 47. We’ve stayed in touch after I sent her a card and she called me the other day and said, “Rachel, will you please tell your community that we’re here? We want to be a part of the community. We hope people will come visit us and we are so grateful to get a card in the mail. You have no idea how it helps us heal. Being remembered by someone with a card gives us hope. When I received the card you sent me, I felt not forgotten. It’s still on my wall from 3 years ago. Will you tell them that if they send us a card, we promise to pay the love forward?”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://caringbycard.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caringbycard?igsh=M250M2o3cHRuNHA4&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: Caring by Card
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@caringbycard
Image Credits
Liza Handman