As healthcare workers were putting their lives on the line in the fight against the pandemic, Christian Stone wanted to show his appreciation.
Two Rhode Islanders including a 10-year-old boy braved the snowstorm to clean the cars of frontline health care workers to show their appreciation for them. Hospital workers have been risking their lives in the battle against the Coronavirus pandemic over the past year, especially over the past few months when Coronavirus cases and deaths have spiked. Abbey Meeker, and her friend's son — 10-year-old Christian Stone — cleaned the cars of the staff at Westerly Hospital in the evening so they could go home without any delay, reported WJAR news. "Christian wanted to do something good for nurses about a month ago when it stormed, and he said next time it snowed, he wanted to clean cars off for nurses because of Coronavirus," said Meeker. "I told him I would come with him." The pair spent the chilly evening cleaning snow and ice off cars of hospital workers.
The 10-year-old said he had been hearing countless stories of health care workers working overtime to help the people and he said he wanted to show his appreciation by helping them. "All day, every day the nurses here, they deal with the pandemic like COVID and they want to get home from work, so we thought we would make it a tiny bit easier for them by cleaning off their cars for them," said Christian Stone. They braved the howling winds and chilly weather as they went about cleaning the cars. They started at 2 p.m. and cleaned the cars of the nurses of the first shift, before continuing to clean more. "They thanked us," said Meeker. "Honestly, we've probably done at least 80 cars. We did 20 there, 30 here, another 20 before we called it quits."
Meeker admitted it "sucked" to be out here in cold but he could see how much it meant to the ten-year-old boy. Meeker said Christian Stone was passionate about it."I did it because he wanted to do it. It's a good feeling." Christian said it was worth it to just see them happy about seeing their car cleaned. "It's been cold but extremely fun seeing how happy they get," said Christian. "Some of them say, 'Thank you so much' and I'm just really happy to see them happy." The pair said some of the hospital staff even offered to pay for cleaning their cars, but they refused and told them it was a way of showing their appreciation for the work they were doing. "We just said, 'We're doing this for you guys," said Meeker. Christian couldn't be happier about helping the healthcare workers. "I feel like I actually helped someone out and that's a really good feeling, when you know someone has been helped out," said Christian, before adding that all he wanted to do was for them to be able to go home early after a long day fo work.
More than 465,000 have died from Coronavirus in America alone. Joe Biden acknowledged the loss during his inauguration ceremony last month. "In my first act as President, I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all of those who we lost this past year to the pandemic," said Biden, reported CNN. "Those 400,000 fellow Americans — moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. We'll honor them and become the people and nation we know we can and should be," he added. Biden had also paid tribute to healthcare workers during his campaign. “They did so much, they risked their lives. They’ve done so much for us, and we owe them, we owe them, we owe them,” said Joe Biden, reported The Hill.
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