We apologize in advance for the length. Look for highlighted portions to find pertinent news and protest information.

This week we celebrate more wins and also mourn some losses. Let’s start with the win. In a couple hours, our very own, Destiny Carpenter will be interviewed by Fox and Friends! Tune in at 4:50am or look for reruns of this morning’s show. Destiny was a multiple Daisy Award winning RN at Family Health West before being terminated for declining the vaccine. If you see her video, please share it around with friends across the country. We need the nation to know they are not alone in fighting this!

Then take the rest of the day off to get mentally prepared for Thursday and Saturday!

THURSDAY, HEROES’ LAST DAY AND TACO BAR

Tomorrow (Thursday, 9/30) will be a protest at Family Health West. Join us on the Cherry Street side of the hospital from 3-6pm to salute our heroes as this will be the last day for a lot of our friends who chose to not get vaccinated. Consider bringing a single flower or even a bouquet with notes of appreciation and if we run into staff, we can leave it with them. If not, we can leave it with the hospital paying tribute to them. We also salute those at Hilltop because it is a lot of their last days as well. Please consider leaving flowers for them also or having them delivered to the front desk at the Commons asking specifically that they be given to employees who are terminated. Don’t just do this on Thursday, but any day in the month of October. We want these facilities to know how it affects us too.

If you’d like to do something additional for them, please send us a note and we can give you ideas or help you execute on the ones you already have. Help can also come in the way of meal trains, discounts to the businesses you own, donations so these heroes can potentially pay for groceries for a week or two, care packages, certificates for a meal or coffee, free babysitting certificates while they apply for jobs elsewhere, products your business can part with, those who are willing to donate time t post relevant and unique job opportunities (no MLM at this time please) to the Facebook group, etc. If you decide to donate with this specific purpose in mind, please indicate that on the donation page memo line with a note like “support our heroes” so we know it’s not meant for marketing purposes and we will make sure the funds are used appropriately.

If you have additional ideas on how to help them, please let us know! Stop the Mandate is also going to work with local restaurants to put together a special dinner for these under-appreciated heroes in the coming weeks. You guys deserve to be celebrated!

FHW has been led by CEO, Korrey Klein, who believes the unvaccinated are “risking the health of others” simply by being unvaccinated (even though we know vaccinated workers carry this risk also and potentially at higher viral loads and asymptomatic transmission is rare).

FHW CEO has also suggested that the unvaccinated are “penalizing” others and that “risking” (aka “not being vaccinated”) “is not up for negotiation at FHW”. He has been overheard by many saying that paying for unvaccinated staff member’s training, certifications, etc. (customary for the vaccinated too) is “rewarding their behavior”.

What Klein fails to realize is he is the one actually risking the health of others, penalizing our community, his departing staff, the staff he manages to keep and himself by kicking some of the most loyal, hardworking people to the curb and leaving the hospital with limited, overworked healthcare who are prone to more mistakes, malpractice or worse.

The public doesn’t know just how desperate some of these facilities are. Some of these facilities (especially nursing homes) are so understaffed already they’re asking their housekeeping staff to help patients out of bed and their custodial staff to take QMAP certifications to pass meds. Is this the standard of care we want for our families?

If it’s this bad already, do we really believe the small risk of spreading a highly survivable virus is worse than what will happen when overworked staff make more mistakes or when your loved one has an emergency but must wait three times as long to get care? This is just the tipping point. Do we really believe this about health of our staff and patients and not about government incentives/control (look into the state and federal funding hospitals are getting for their compliance)? Tell these hospitals how you feel. Email and call them like never before as this is the last month for a lot of our cherished healthcare staff.

Let’s show these staff members what they’ve meant to us and how much we appreciate their service especially over the last two years. Please show up for them tomorrow between 3-6pm at Family Health West on Cherry Street.

If anyone feels like they need a little pick-me-up after, please join us Thursday evening for a taco bar and some worship music at: 3652 1/2 G 7/10 Rd. Palisade, CO 81526. ANYBODY is welcome! They don’t have to be healthcare, someone affected by the mandate, or even a volunteer at protests.

Taco bar will be ready to eat at 6:30pm. Worship music will be outside on a big screen with a sound system if the weather is nice, so dress accordingly. Bring your own lawn chair if you’d like. A head count would be appreciated (for food preparation) but not necessary. Anyone is welcome including kids:

SATURDAY REGULAR PROTESTS

This Saturday will begin our regular rotation of Saturday protests (with occasional exceptions). We are going to try to bring awareness to more industries that are now being affected by this mandate. If you think about it, thank a truck driver, federal worker, state trooper, oil field worker, grocery store employee, etc. this week as they’re now facing this same decision. And please keep thanking your healthcare heroes as their deadlines are coming fast!

Mark your calendars every Saturday you can from 10am-12pm. We also have determined a date for our Medical Freedom March! Watch out for specifics, but plan on October 16^th beginning at 10am!

This Saturday will be our first at the Downtown Art Walk. Plan to meet at the Two Rivers Convention Center parking lot at 10am. If we can draw a large enough crowd by 10:30, we will do a march! Let’s shoot for at least 100 as the GJ police department told us this week that that number or more makes them nervous. It’s not that we want to be threatening in any way, but we do want the attention. How neat would it be to march escorted by several police vehicles?

See you all out there,

The Stop the Mandate GJ Team