Chapter 04: Expanding the Children’s Christmas Card Project
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Description
Mrs. Harrison begins this section talking about “some political things that influenced the Project,” citing as an example the invitation extended to Barbara Bush to attend the Project kickoff party. Mrs. Bush’s presence had a very positive effect. She then goes on to explain that after Randall’s Supermarket began selling the cards, she hired a consultant to help the Project break into grocery stores nationwide. The describes attending a supermarket trade fair and the resulting success of selling MD Anderson holiday cards in markets around the country. She also explains that the Project eventually separated from Volunteer Services (coming under the management of Steve Stuyck in Public Affairs) because there was too much to do. She speaks briefly about the art classes offered to children and notes that Page Lawson offered an award to each child who entered a piece to be considered for a card. The children whose designs were selected participated in the holiday parade that circulated through MD Anderson.
Identifier
HarrisonK_01_20130528_C04
Publication Date
5-28-2012
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - An Institutional Unit; Industry Partnerships; Beyond the Institution; Building/Transforming the Institution; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work; The Philanthropist/Volunteer; Patients; Institutional Processes
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s lovely. It really is. Tell me more. We were talking about kind of the process of producing the cards and all the details that you were involved with. What other details were there? What other details had to be worked out to really get this project to move along smoothly?
Karen Harrison:
Well, any entity so large is political as well as—so we had to be aware of the political. As I said, my son is a physician and associate professor at Southwestern in Dallas, and he asked my advice about whether to take the position or not. And I said, “If you’re willing to go into a political realm as well as a medical realm, it would be fine.”
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What was going on with politics that affected the Children’s Art Project? Tell me about that.
Karen Harrison:
I don’t know that this was political. I think of it as political. But I invited George H. Bush to be in our parade, and he was unable to make it. He was vice president or something then. But Barbara came to our party, the kickoff party, and there are precious pictures of her sitting on the stage and down talking to a little bald-headed baby, a little two- or three-year-old. Oh, he’s older than that—four- or five-year-old. This doesn’t have anything to do with the art project, but they have donated the proceeds from a book to Anderson. I don’t know that I’m hitting the political realm at all, but that was part of it.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Was that a uniformly positive thing, or did it create some—?
Karen Harrison:
Oh, I think it was uniformly positive.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, it sounds like it was. Yeah.
Karen Harrison:
They lost a child.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes. To leukemia, is that right?
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. It was a very, very good thing.
Karen Harrison:
You know, we human beings such as we are, it may be slightly offensive to some people just because they weren’t in the same party. But I think in general, it was all very well accepted.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It seems like it would be in that instance. Were there other situations where it was difficult to move the project forward because of pressures or crosscurrents?
Karen Harrison:
No, I didn’t feel that there were.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me more about the work that you did in expanding the project and making it successful.
Karen Harrison:
After the Randalls’ first year, we did hire a consultant. We went to Chicago to the national grocery stores event, and that year Randalls won the Golden Grocery Basket Award.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And that was for what?
Karen Harrison:
I don’t know exactly why, but they did. And we had a booth and talked to people from all over the United States. We went as far as California. We ate the ice cream from the man passing it out across the aisle, and we had a fun time and a productive time.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So what kind of expansion into grocery stores nationwide did that enable you to achieve?
Karen Harrison:
It made for very much more recognition of the project, and financially it was very valuable.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So were you in grocery stores in California and all over?
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. That’s amazing. Do you recall what year that was about? I know it’s tough.
Karen Harrison:
Not any of the years. I don’t know.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I was just curious to see how that coordinated with expansion. I’m sure some of those details are in the records at the office for the Children’s Art Project. But that’s pretty neat. So what was another way in which you began to expand?
Karen Harrison:
I really think that was the major— First we had done the University of Texas things, and then when we went into the grocery business, that was a big time. You can go to Randalls today and they have a display up of our cards.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So it’s still an enduring relationship. That’s amazing.
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. That’s amazing. Your last year as manager of the project, was that 1990 or 1991? You said seventeen years you were involved—or sometime in the early ‘90s?
Karen Harrison:
In the early ‘90s, yes. They did bring in a new manager. We kind of separated from Volunteer Services and then brought in a head of the Art Project themselves.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Why did it separate from Volunteer Services?
Karen Harrison:
Well, because there was too much to be done, and the volunteers over across the street thought we had too much of the time and so forth. Steve Stuyck was the manager of our managers. He’s vice president. It just worked out that we decided that the separation would be good.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Was this around the time when the Children’s Art Project began to do more than Christmas cards?
Karen Harrison:
Probably even earlier than that. I’m not sure when we began doing more products, but that was a big move. As I said, the Jewish community doesn’t send quantities of cards like we do, but the rest of the world doesn’t send the quantities they used to, so the variety of new products is, I’m sure— I don’t know the profits and all, but I feel certain that the new products have been very helpful to the project.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And that decrease in use of Christmas cards or holiday cards is because of the Internet? Is that the idea?
Karen Harrison:
I don’t really know. See, they were called Christmas cards up to a point, and then they decided that would be offensive, so that’s when they became holiday cards. But our picture at first was this—the children’s faces in a wreath.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, I see. That was the logo of the—?
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, interesting.
Karen Harrison:
It’s on my business card.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, I see. Mrs. Harrison is showing me an image on the cover of a scrapbook she’s put together, and it has a logo. It’s kind of a teardrop-shaped wreath and has children’s faces.
Karen Harrison:
And of course, it was in color, with red and so forth.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I see. I think the expansion into other products was in maybe ’95, ’96, ’97, something like that. Were you involved in that at all? Or that was—?
Karen Harrison:
I think it was before that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It was before that. You mean when Christopher Radko, the Christmas ornament person, was—
Karen Harrison:
Yes, I think it was. Well, now, Christopher Radko was later, but there were limited additional products.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So you were involved with that too?
Karen Harrison:
With some of it.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what did you do? What were those special initiatives?
Karen Harrison:
I did not bring Christopher Radko in. That was probably Page, but I don’t know.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What did you do? What were the limited-edition cards?
Karen Harrison:
I don’t remember the limited-edition cards.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you had mentioned limited-edition, and so that’s why I picked up on that. Okay. My mistake. So were there other special things you did to kind of expand the project in other ways?
Karen Harrison:
I bought them.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You bought them?
Karen Harrison:
How about that? I still buy their products.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You still buy them. They’re very cool. They really are cool.
Karen Harrison:
Yes, they are—t-shirts, umbrellas, scarves.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Scarves. Right. They have mouse pads and covers for cell phones and all kinds of things. It seems like they’re always innovating new things. Did you ever go to any of the classes, the art classes, where the kids were making work?
Karen Harrison:
Yes, I did.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Did you run some of them?
Karen Harrison:
No, I did not run them, just attended them.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Tell me about the classes.
Karen Harrison:
We had a volunteer—and I’m not going to be able to give you her name now—but she was an artist, and she came and worked with them. We had a period in the day—once a week, not every day, I guess—where they did art in school. There was a schoolroom. I’m sure there still is a schoolroom. We went in and encouraged, just mostly encouraging. “I really like that one,” or, “Have you thought there might be a bird on that tree?”
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What kind of materials did the kids work with?
Karen Harrison:
Essentially just color and paper.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
But were they paints? Were they pastels?
Karen Harrison:
Oh, no. They weren’t anything that complicated. They were colored pencils, crayons, but I don’t believe any of them were really—well, there was probably watercolor on a few of them, but it was pretty limited to the media.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What was the age range of the kids? And did they choose to come, or was it like, “Okay, now it’s art, and everybody who can is going to come and do the art class”?
Karen Harrison:
I think it’s everybody who was interested could come. But of course, the older ones were the ones that were chosen. The works of the older children were the ones that were chosen because everybody likes good things. People don’t have the imagination to think of how it could be presented or something. So the more sophisticated were chosen more often.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Did more kids start attending the art classes when the word got out that their work might become a Christmas card for MD Anderson?
Karen Harrison:
I don’t think so. I know that Page believed in instant gratification because of the times. That may not be what she would be interested in now, but we gave some kind of award to everybody that entered.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, really?
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what did you give them?
Karen Harrison:
I don’t even remember. It wasn’t any big thing, but everybody that entered had some gratification right away.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what kind of honor did you give to the children whose work was actually selected to become a card?
Karen Harrison:
I told you we had parades. They could be helping to lead in the parade, pushing their pole or whatever. Or we had an antique fire truck that had come, and the ones that couldn’t walk could ride on the fire truck and wave. And we went through the medical center. I think that was fun for them, and it got the whole medical center’s attention.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
The parade was advertised so people would—
Karen Harrison:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
—attend it. Was it like a lunchtime thing?
Karen Harrison:
Probably it was late morning, just before lunch or something like that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, when people are getting ready to take a break. When you think about the Children’s Art Project, what do you really pat yourself on the back for doing? What are you really pleased to have done with that project?
Karen Harrison:
I hope I’m not patting myself on the back too much. I feel thankful that I had the privilege to be with it.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And why is that?
Karen Harrison:
Because I think it’s a— (End of Audio 1 Session 1)
Recommended Citation
Harrison, Karen K. and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 04: Expanding the Children’s Christmas Card Project" (2012). Interview Chapters. 875.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/875
Conditions Governing Access
Open
