Patients are 'happy to be remembered'

During the holidays, there are plenty of things to remember.

You have to remember to invite friends and families to parties. Remember to shop for Christmas trees or candles for Hannukah menorahs. Remember to take your children to visit Santa. Remember to hang the Christmas lights, and remember to send out holiday cards.

But of all of the things to remember, Utah State Hospital employees ensure that their patients remember that it is Christmas. After all, every person deserves a holiday surprise.

For more than a half century, the state hospital for the mentally ill has sponsored the Forgotten Patient Christmas Project. Its goal is as straight-forward as its name: To provide every one of the 383 patients a gift to be opened on Christmas morning.

"It is the most touching program of its type out there," said Carolyn Hulbert, administrative assistant at Salt Lake City's St. Ambrose Catholic Church, a program supporter.

For the past two decades, Shawna Peterson, the hospital's volunteer director, has organized the gift program. She's inspired by her own memories of Christmases while growing up in Utah Valley, and touched by her recollections of two relatives who were hospital patients. Even as a child, she was aware of patients who seemed as if they had no connection to the outside world, and yet they still received presents every Christmas Day.

Peterson doesn't consider patients' families neglectful. After all, some families

become burned out from the challenges of regularly dealing with mental illness. Other families don't have the money to provide elaborate presents. And some patients simply don't have nearby family or friends.

The hospital and the local community have a gift-giving tradition dating back to the hospital's opening in 1885, at a time when mental illness was still believed by some to be evidence of devil possession. Families from throughout the Wasatch Front would travel by horseback to deliver gifts to patients they had never met.

Last year, 346 of the 383 patients -- about 90 percent -- were identified as having no means of receiving gifts for Christmas, and so the task was left to Peterson and other hospital employees. They signed up sponsors, who were given anonymous wish lists representing each patient, with information about hobbies and needs. "This is the only time some patients get anything new," Peterson said.

For 20 years, Jessie Franich, leader of the Wet Blankets Horse 4-H Club in Morgan, has enlisted the help of the 20-25 children in the group to shop for presents for two patients each year.

"We take two names and they'll have a Christmas they'll never forget," Franich said. She's such a strong supporter of the program that she has made contributing to the Forgotten Christmas Project a requirement for joining the club.

While the program has many supporters, inevitably during the few days before Christmas each year, Peterson and employees will have to scramble so that no one is forgotten. Donations from the community, whether in money or gifts, are always needed and appreciated, Peterson said.

After Christmas, each patient writes thank-you cards to the families who have sponsored them.

"If you could read some cards, they break your heart," Peterson said. "They have been happy to be remembered."