Pickles and The Hole in the Wall
Date: October 25, 2004

The nurses on Floyd Medical Center’s Cardiac Care Unit nicknamed her Pickles. She lived in Dalton, but her husband was hospitalized at Floyd, and Pickles had used her last $75 to hire a taxi to bring her from Dalton to Rome to be with her husband.

The nurses quickly took Pickles under their wing, buying necessities for her, arranging for meals for her when she visited her husband and even calling television evangelists for Pickles, a deeply religious woman, to request prayer for her husband and anointed prayer cloths for her.

When Pickles wanted her husband to have Halloween gifts that she saw in Walgreen’s, her husband’s nurses and Jane Byrd, Dr. Vincent Pearson’s assistant, pitched in to buy a stuffed animal and some Halloween pumpkins for her to give to him.

Pickles had no material possessions to speak of, and the clothes she had worn from Dalton to Rome were no longer wearable. Her ever-attentive guardian nurses called upon the Floyd Medical Center Auxiliary’s The Hole In The Wall thrift shop for assistance.

For 23 years, The Hole In The Wall has served as a fund raiser, thrift shop and community chest for Floyd. The shop accepts clothes, books and all manner of other items from Floyd employees, volunteers and members of the community. The donated items are then either sold on Wednesdays from 1 p.m .until 4 p.m. to customers or are given to Floyd customers who are in need.

Pickle’s nurses found two nice changes of clothes for her. She wore one of them home when her husband was dismissed from Floyd.

Those kinds of stories happen regularly at The Hole In The Wall.

Tooken Richardson Cade, who founded the thrift shop when she was Director of Volunteers at Floyd in 1981, recounts anecdote after anecdote, both touching and humorous, of the many ways the thrift shop has helped in time of need.

There was the pauper who died at Floyd without any clothes for his burial: The Hole In The Wall made him quite presentable for meeting his Maker.

There’s the homeless man who lived under one of the bridges of Rome. He managed to get a job interview, but didn’t have anything to wear–until he came to The Hole In The Wall. He left looking like a CEO.

There’s the Floyd employee who came in after working a shift needing something to wear to a funeral immediately. The Hole In The Wall sent her away pressed and ready.

One young woman picked out all her bridesmaid dresses at The Hole In The Wall. A young fellow selected all his groomsmen based on the suit sizes he found in the thrift shop.

A lady from West Rome came in unprepared for the rain that had begun to fall. She left with a raincoat and umbrella to make the rest of her day a little easier.

And then, there are the patients involved in automobile accidents whose clothes have to be cut away or are damaged. A quick call to The Hole in The Wall soon has them in clothes for the trip home.

There are the Hospice and Home Care patients and families who have limited resources. Many times The Hole in The Wall has been called on to help provide clothes or other items for them.

Baby items donated often have been used to help Floyd’s youngest patients, to complete the meager nurseries where some of the babies go home. The Hole In The Wall even has been asked to provide burial clothes for babies.

Mrs. Cade said she didn’t know how well a thrift shop would do at Floyd when she asked for permission to try the idea nearly a quarter century ago. She was given unused space in the old Weaver Wing and set up shop, accepting donations and opening two days a week to the public.

Every year since then, The Hole In The Wall has collected between $3,000 and $4,000 from sales, the proceeds of which are donated to Floyd to improve the health of the Greater Rome community.

The effort and service provided by The Hole In The Wall recently received well-deserved recognition, earning the Group Leadership Award from the Georgia Association of Volunteer Administrators for using volunteers to meet a significant need.

The needs at Floyd are often significant and The Hole In The Wall most certainly meets them.

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