hospital gift shop

Carrollton-based Kelli's Suppliers is a life line for hospital gift shops

Carrollton, TX – If there is a hospital gift shop in America that doesn't buy merchandise from Mike Cohen, he doesn't know about it.

The 54-year-old owner of Kelli's Gift Shop Suppliers is the nation's largest wholesaler to 4,000 hospital gift shops offering more than 3,500 products from 800 vendors.That's because Cohen, once the largest owner of hospital stores in the country, understands the lay of their limited land.

Chocolate café expanding at Memorial Hospital

South Bend, IN — If you are opening a new store in a strip center, every decision revolves around creating the best shopping experience possible for the customer.

That is not the case in a hospital environment.

As Memorial Hospital designed its new main entrance on Bartlett Street in downtown South Bend, it considered issues of patient care before determining where it would relocate the gift shop and chocolate cafe. Read more...

Gift shop opens at FCH

Ready for a brand new shopping experience in Fulton County? Then make time to come to the new Fulton County Hospital gift shop to find the perfect presents for friends and family. Read more...

Hospital gift shops offer feel-good shopping

There's the mall. The Internet. And the great little shops you'll find everywhere from Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo to Main Street in your town.

But there's one alternative this Christmas season you probably haven't considered: hospital gift shops.

The thought may seem a bit odd at first. After all, many of us don't want to think about them — much less go to them — unless we're forced to. Read more...

Safety Store Provides Solace For Expectant Moms

Indianapolis, IN — Keeping children safe is not easy job, and it's not cheap, requiring supervision and the right equipment.

A unique central Indiana store hopes to help new parents get prepared for what's to come and save money in the process, 6News' Julie Pursley reported.

Expectant mother Genevieve Murray is about to move into a new home next week, and she's thinking about what she needs to buy to keep her new baby safe when he or she arrives in November.

"Safety gates, because I have two dogs, and monitors," she said.

The Riley Hospital Safety Store is the first children's hospital-based retail store of its kind in the country. Read more...

A gift to the community, the patients

When the weather is too cold and windy in the winter or hot and muggy in the summer to go outside for a break, there’s a place in both local hospitals visitors can go for relief.

“It smells good, it looks good,” said DeLauna Jobe, volunteer manager at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. “It’s a break from the tensions that go on here.”

Both St. Mary’s and Integris Bass Baptist Health Center gift shops are staffed mostly by volunteers. The cheerful nature of workers who love what they do, combined with the right merchandise for both hospital staff and visitors, makes the gift shops the perfect escape. Read more...

BGMH Auxiliary sells more than just candy

Gridley, Calif. - Sitting in the lobby of Biggs-Gridley Memorial Hospital are owls, penguins, whales, elephants, ducks and bears. Wild animals are not cruising the halls of the hospital, they are ensconsed in glass cases, as the Auxiliary sells more than just candy as a means of fund raising. Well known for their August Ice Cream Social, the Auxiliary sells unique toys, cars, planes, helicopters and firetrucks for the children, along with Disneyland wooden characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and friends that are legally chartered. For those who collect certain items, there are pigs, butterflies, Dalmations and even Winnie the Pooh collectibles. Read more...

Hospitals in Michigan look to shops for revenue

Don't be surprised to visit a hospital and be able to walk out with a mattress or a Honey Baked Ham.

Borrowing a page from airports and shopping, hospital systems are expanding, renovating and taking back their retail and food operations from outside vendors and hospital auxiliaries, or working with volunteers to introduce retail concepts.

Amid lean times, they are finding that there's money to be made from selling plush bathrobes, jewelry, take-out ethnic foods and birthday cakes. Read more...

Gift shop has many surprises

The new gift shop in the Women’s Center at Graham Regional Medical Center is no ordinary store.

This GRMC Auxiliary Gift Shop is manned entirely by volunteers from buyers to salespeople. And many of the caring volunteers have a vested interest in the needs of new mothers or cancer patients, the two main focuses of the gift shop.

Kandy Maberry, the gift shop chairman, has seen what patients and their families go through. Her sister fought breast cancer at the age of 25, and her father died of colon cancer. One of her goals as shop buyer is for women with cancer to have resources available here so that they don’t have to travel to Wichita Falls or Fort Worth. But the gift shop is not limited to cancer support items.

“We accommodate and focus on women’s needs — a new mother, a newborn gift or a cancer-related product,” said Maberry. Read more...

Auxiliary’s little shop does a big job

Next time you’re in the area, stop by the Hospital Auxiliary gift shop inside Kitimat General.

Inside the shop on this quiet afternoon, auxiliary vice-president Fernanda Matos sits at the counter in front of a line of chocolate bars, gum, and a coffee maker.

Her view is of a collection of accessories and clothing - plenty of them handmade in the community.

It may be a modest sized store, but the results are big - the auxiliary so far this year has raised $35,000 to be used for hospital improvements and projects. Read more...