Adopt a Grandparent
Written by Parsons Green
Every holiday season, several Mary Kay consultants and directors will promote “Adopt a Grandparent”. They ask customers to buy product at Mary Kay cost, which is then donated to a nursing home. The consultant isn’t making any profit, but is receiving wholesale credit for their monthly production totals. Instead of asking homes what products are most needed, the consultants will donate Mary Kay hand or feet lotion and may throw in some candy or a crossword puzzle.
Consultants are always asking for ideas for their program on the various Facebook groups. These screenshots are from November 2024 but still illustrate how desperate and tacky these programs are.
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Valanna Garms is mad. She contacted a nursing home and the person she talked to seemed confused by her request. The staff member wondered if Valanna needed a wish list from the residents so she could gift them items they wanted. Her residents wanted necklaces and chocolate.
Tonya Vice suggests she find another home. Someone will want the gifts Valanna and her unit are putting together. Mari Ripp says to tell the staff member they will go somewhere else!
Marcy Casler and other consultants agree. Move on.
Demi Gunn says she would never be picky over gifts that are given to residents. What if someone gave each resident a cat? Or a bowling ball? Lisa Dasher Powers wonders if the residents of that home are mentally cognizant! They could have dementia! Adopt a Grandparent is not an angel tree. It is a gift. You get what you get!
Other consultants join in. Move on. These are gifts that should be appreciated. You will find someone to take them.
Along with earning credit towards their production goals, consultants use these programs as a way to brag on social media about the good work they are doing. Frosty Rose posted about a director exploiting residents with free lip balm, where their pictures were plastered all over social media.
Nursing homes get offers like this from many different MLM’s not just Mary Kay. All of this product dropped off at the home for the staff to manage and most likely throw out. But at least the consultant got pics for social media and some production credit. Ho ho ho!
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Thanks for putting this on the front page. Whenever these threads appear on the message board I have to force myself not to post, because after all the posters there aren’t the ones promulgating these self-serving, self-congratulatory, chances to be all “LOOOKIT MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! ME MEMEMEMEMEME MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!” on social media. No need to kill, or swear at, the messengers.
But since this place is so popular with the whited (pinkened?) sepulchres on the sly, I can say what I think about those greedy slimebags determined to cram their “charity” down people’s thoats.
Look, huns, you hypocrites ain’t shy about dragging Jesus front and center and scourging him all over again when it suits you. Yet you never bother to engage your brain cell to think what he might think of what you’re doing while slapping his name all over it.
I’m sure you go about making a big flipping deal about *******CHRIST********mas all December by sitting in the front pew of church where everyone can see you and correcting clerks who have the temerity to wish you Happy Holidays, because it’s Jesus’s birthday. I’m sure you have whatever the trendy decor on offer at Hobby Lobby is and force your kids into matching outfits for your carefully curated envy bait Christmas letters, making sure to mention your successful “business” and Mary Kay. Oh, yeah, and God, I guess.
Ok, so you’ve vaguely grasped the notion that charity=good, but obviously you’ve never directed a thought about what it really means: doing good FOR OTHERS for its OWN SAKE. Not for recognition or applause or social media clout or tax deductions, but because you want to do something for someone else.
That means giving what they need or want, not what benefits you.
And to suggest that the residents of the nursing home are too senile to know what they want because they don’t want what you’re begrudging them is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.
It’s a shame Mary Kay isn’t going to last long enough to see you in a nursing home, the recipient of the next generation’s “generosity.”
So true! Its not charity on the k-bots’ part if someone else is covering the cost. In this case, it is charity on the purchaser’s part, not the k-bot. The k-bot and MKC both stand to gain from these “charity” purchases.
If k-bots cared about the folks in these nursing homes, they’d donate their time, and they’d recruit members of their downline to do the same, without anyone else knowing about it. After all, that is probably what nursing home residents want most of all. Once there, these k-bots can get to know the residents and discover which material items the residents really want. Chances are it’s not beauty products!
This whole Adopt a Grandparent along with Sunscreen for Soldiers and so on just annoys the crap out of me.
I’m thinking back to when I was a kid and my dad was a high ranking VP. Right around Christmas, we would get beautifully wrapped festive packages that went under the tree. Of course we used to get all excited because they were gifts, right? However, when we opened them on either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, it was usually a disappointment. Once in awhile it would be something good like a box of candy, but usually it was a promotional item like cocktail glasses, ashtrays (none of my family smoked) that sort of thing. We soon learned not to get excited no matter how tempting the gift looked and Dad stopped saving them to unwrap at Christmas and we just unwrapped them when he brought them home from the office or they arrived in the mail.
Anyway that’s what I thought of when I read Lindsay Creamer’s post about the residents’ faces lighting up when they saw the gifts. I suspect she’s making it up, but if it’s true I bet you anything their faces stopped lighting up when they saw it was just hand lotion, some cheap fuzzy socks, and a couple of Hershey’s kisses.
Even when I’m donating gifts for organizations or people I don’t know and will probably never meet, I try and carefully select what to get. Toys for Tots for example, they’re going to children who most likely aren’t going to get much in the way of fun gifts without donations, and it’s fun to select something nice and think about how happy the recipient is going to be when they open it. Same with a nursing home – I’d ask the staff for suggestions on what the residents want or need, because they deserve a merry Christmas and giving should be selfless and joyful, not because someone is trying to meet some sales goal or humblebrag on social media.
Ugh!
One more thing because this is a hot topic for me. That comment by Lisa Disher Powers basically saying that elderly patients don’t know what they want so it doesn’t matter is such BS that it really sticks in my craw. Even with dementia, if they ask for chocolate or ice cream, as long as their doctor says it’s okay for them to have, well then GET THEM THEIR CHOCOLATE OR ICE CREAM and let them have a happy moment as opposed to lotion that they will most likely never use for various reasons.
Lisa Dasher Powers wonders if the residents of that home are mentally cognizant! They could have dementia! Adopt a Grandparent is not an angel tree. It is a gift. You get what you get!
Way to infantilise old people, Lisa. We ask children for their “Santa Lists” but Lisa here believes that she’s the Ultimate Arbiter of what All Old People Deserve tm.
“Along with earning credit towards their production goals, consultants use these programs as a way to brag on social media about the good work they are doing.”
Yep. It’s not really about the patients. It’s not about “giving back.” It’s about the consultants preying on people’s sympathies and using those customers’ monies to order lots and lots of Mary Kay products for prize credit.
The tactic is successful and runs year-long. Beware of “Valentines for Grandparents”, “Easter Baskets for Grandparents”, etc.