Words are very powerful when expressed to others, whether it be written or verbal. Words said with feeling, whether in anger or in a heart-felt manner can make an impact sometimes more than we realize. Last month, I found out just how much of an impact saying “Thank You” could actually be.
To share a little bit of myself, before I lost my home in Flint two years ago, I was in the middle of major dental work. I found out that I had peridontal disease and I needed all of my teeth extracted. When the economy fell in Flint, I was left with 5 teeth in my mouth and a major gap in between my top teeth where I had a tooth extracted. When the economy fell, there wasn’t any minimum wage jobs, and what ones were available kept telling me no, or come back after I had my teeth fixed. So much for getting them fixed with no job nor dental insurance. Before I lost my work, I didn’t even have dental insurance, I was paying out of my own pocket which was well into the thousands in cost. With no help from the state because I wasn’t pregnant, with children, nor disabled or a senior, I lost my home of seven years.
To keep the story short, I moved here to Traverse City back in January of this year. I stayed at a shelter here during the winter so that I could have a roof over my head, and work for the temp agency job that I had acquired the day after I came up here. My hopes was to have a warm place to stay, so that I could save up the money for a place to live, but much to my amazement, I received far more help than I could have hoped for.
I finally received health insurance through the state, as well as through Grand Traverse County, although dental wasn’t included with it. But through help available, I was able to get an emergency extraction done on 3 of my teeth, and was told that I could keep my bi-cuspids. When I looked into dental help for no and low income people, I was steered towards the Dental Clinics North, who works in conjunction with the Traverse City Health Dept. I was finally accepted for dental insurance, which paid for $600 of my bill for my dentures, but left me with a remaining balance of $870 to pay on my own. The secretary there sent me down the hall after she saw the look of dismay in my face, and had me ask the lady who worked in the Health Dept office if they had any funding to help me with the rest of the balance. A couple of phone calls from her (I love how prompt she is in returning phone calls 
), and a few days later, I was crying while talking on the phone with her when she said that they would cover the $870 of my balance, all I needed to do was make and keep my appointments. She also asked that if I could write a letter of thank you, and tell how receiving the money for my dentures would affect my life as they use those thank you letters to try to get more funding for women the following year. I was like, no problem. I mean, wow! to me, that was so little that I could do for so much that they helped me with, and they didn’t even know me. I was a stranger to them.
A month later, I was called by the lady at the Health Dept, and asked to attend a little annual meeting/dinner for the organization that helps them with their grants. At first I was hesitant, because I was like, why me? Then she explained that only 3 of 29 women that was helped this past year had written a thank you letter, and mine and another lady’s letters were so heart-felt expressed, that the organization wanted to meet us. Just wanting to say thank you verbally, I went.
The organization is the Women’s Healthcare Giving Circle of Traverse City. When I looked on the web, I found out that various states in the US have groups like this as well, although very few. When I walked into the meeting, seeing that it was about what things to help with funding on women’s health care, and that they voted yes or no on these different topics of concern, I decided to share my story with them when I went up to the podium to say thank you.
Mind you, my knees were knocking big time. lol I’m not one to give speeches, in fact I never had before, that was my first. But I was still toothless because I hadn’t received my dentures yet due to some complications. So I had no idea how these women would take me. I mean these women were affluent women. They were also very kind, and caring women I found out after my fear dissipated. So I stepped up to the podium, and shared my story with them, and said thank you again, choking on my last words because it was so emotional for me. Afterwards, I had some of the women come up and thank me for having the courage to step up and tell my story. My only hope was that if they saw how much the money had helped us, that maybe they would continue to help.
Two weeks later I received a phone call from the lady at the Health Dept who has now become a friend of mine. I found out that they did receive their grant for this year. Yeah!! This grant is for women, from women. But it helps out with prescriptions and health needs for women, even health awareness, like screening for breast cancer and such. Also with children’s health, prenatal, dental and so much more. The Health Dept does a lot for people, and this grant was to help with that. The average amount of money to help per person is up to $500, but depending on the circumstances, like mine, they will allow more. Given the fact that they helped 29 women this past year, that is a lot of money. So my speech and thank you, just enabled the Health Dept to help that many more women this coming year.
The power of the words “Thank You” can make a huge difference in the world.
Cherianne Renee Burmeister
June 10, 2008
