HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (KDVR) — A 9-year-old Highlands Ranch girl and her friends are showing our local medical providers just how much they are appreciated.

Erica Choi and other students at Cougar Run Elementary School are making thousands of origami hearts with messages written on them, and dropping them off at hospitals around the metro.”We were hoping to let the medical staff know that we care about them, and we appreciate them during this tough and difficult time,” Choi said.

Her effort seems to be making an impact.”We’ve just been keeping them in our pockets as kind of a reminder of the community that’s behind us, and all the people that are thinking about us in the community, and the work that we are doing ,” said Amy Clas, a nurse at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood.

Clas says all the medical professionals are working hard during this pandemic, and there are good days and bad.  

But gestures like this really mean a lot.

“Occasionally when we get gifts like this, we get little tears in our eyes, and it means so much, more than we could ever express,” Clas said.

Choi and her friends have made posters, and gathered chocolate bars to drop off as well.  “I’m just so proud of them,” said Erica’s father, Steve Choi.

He says they’ve dropped of boxes at Swedish MedicalCenter, Sky Ridge Medical Center, Parker Adventist Hospital and Medical Center of Aurora.  

They plan to drop off more packages at other hospitals in the coming weeks.
“We all can do something,” Steve Choi said.