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!
My dad had a similar gig but we got some pretty good stuff! He got boxes of nice cigars, buckets of oysters (ew for me but he and my grandma loved them, so we had oyster stuffing with holiday meals), boxes of gorgeous big red apples from Washington state, and boxes of grapefruit. I remember my freshman year in college I returned to the dorm with so much fruit for my floor mates since it was just me and dad by then and we couldn’t finish all that on our own.
These “huns for the holidays” gift gimmicks irk me because its all about them hitting production and nothing about actually giving something special to these residents.
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.
Also… “Adopt a Grandparent is not Angel Tree” made me roll my eyes because it’s a term K-bots borrowed, it’s not an actual official program, like Angel Tree is. That response is like saying “I don’t make the rules of this game I just completely made up”.
I will concede that body lotion is a useful items for many residents, but if they weren’t paying MK’s prices (even wholesale prices) they could get more, and better quality lotion that’s better for sensitive skin, like Eucerin or Cetaphil for their money. Ugh! Even when I was partially – brainwashed consultant I knew this was a dumb, self-serving idea.
“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.
If my relative were at a nursing home and one of these selfish ghouls preyed on her and posted photos of her without permission I’d sue.
Years ago, I visited a relative (P) of a close friend who was in memory care in another state, making it hard for my friend to visit. I had met P several times and we were friendly before she started having memory issues.
Of course, P unfortunately no longer recognized me and, I think, was in a bit of distress about whether she should recognize me. However, I had picked up a small, fresh box of See’s Chocolates because I knew she had loved them, and she had once taken me to her favorite See’s store. I had also bought myself one truffle to eat in the store because I have absolutely no self control when it comes to good chocolate.
P was delighted to see the See’s chocolates, ate one, and started to hide the box away before remembering that she should share her treat with a guest. I was very happy to be able to say that I had already had some at the store.
We ate lunch together at the very nice residents’ dining room, and P was mostly quiet, though she did seem more accepting of me after I gave her the gift. The best part of the visit, beside being able to report that it looked like P was being well taken care of and the dining room had good food, was when the unit’s doctor stopped by our table briefly. P recognized him and obviously really liked him. That helped a lot for what was a very bittersweet memory of seeing someone who had been so involved, educated, and social and had lost so much of her former self.
Back when my children were in pre-school, we were members of a Mother and Toddler group. Several times a year we would go to one of the local sheltered accommodation homes for a few hours, do crafts, sing, have a snack, cheer up the residents for a short period of time.
I think they’d like that better than some over-priced cram and socks.
I worked in a senior center for years. We had a policy that didn’t allow people to sell in our center, including those trying to sell specific Medicare Advantage Plans. I had an Angel Tree for the elderly and I sorted and wrapped the gifts myself to be sure that the seniors were not given anything inappropriate, including business cards or anything that could be construed as soliciting.
I had to keep a careful eye on things when my sister had cancer because people would contact her privately trying to get her to stop chemo and rely on natural vitamins and certain brands of essential oils. It was a nightmare.
These ladies are disgusting. These responses are so selfish and shameless. I hope they enjoy their financial disasters created by their participation in the scam that is Mary Kay.
I hope they all go bankrupt.
$12 for hand cream? I could make that $12 sing at the Dollar Store instead!!!! What slimy people 🙁 A true gift you give does not profit you.
NOTHING makes me angrier than this! That’s how I found this page – when my absolute disgust with a former friend led to a Google search. Multiple times a year, this Pink Cadillac director begs for donations for a local senior center where she unloads her old lotions and buys them the same stuffed animals I put in my prize box for my first graders. (And what’s really awesome, since I have an actual job that pays me, I don’t need to beg anyone to give me money.) Then she takes tons of photos with the residents, likely without permission, and posts them for those internet kudos.
It burns me up. True kindness doesn’t need an audience.
Wow. Passive-aggressive much, Kaybots?
I think my personal favorite comment is from Cordelia Carlisle, who says she utilizes the Adopt-A-Grandparent program “which involves gifting Mary Kay products so that the gift benefits both parties.” She comes closest to admitting the real motive.
Indeed. It’s all about the MK hun and not the residents. Disgusting.
Do these people not realize how stressed out the people who run nursing homes are and the high turnover they have with the rank and file employees? They do not give a crap as to how “wonderful ” and “generous” these gifts might be or about helping anyone meet their monthly production goals, nor should they. If these people had any kind of heart they would “adopt a grandparent” by going to these homes for just a few hours and spending some time with the residents. In every nursing home I stepped in, the residents are lonely. They don’t want hand cream, they want some attention which is needed more than anything.
I’d hardly call expired minty goo wonderful or generous but then I’m not in the pink fog desperate to offload expired hoards of inventory that I only bought to earn a 2p Temu trinket.
That’s why those words were in quotes. Pathetic is probably a better description of the concept like everything else in MK.
It’s all about them clearing out unsold inventory for clicks rather than charity and providing them with something they actually want. And trying to make a paltry commission too don’t forget that. Boke. I’m sure the residents want someone to spend time with them rather than give them expired minty goo that the dear kind IBC couldn’t flog to anyone. It’s all me me meeee and my commissions and Tiktok likes rather than actual kindness and caring.