There’s no more essential business than health care today. As COVID-19 started working its way through the country this spring, thankful Americans showed their support for health care workers in myriad ways, even going out to the streets for a daily coordinated howl of gratitude. Closet Factory’s Denver branch wanted to do something more concrete. The branch developed its Nominate a Nurse program to give back to local nurses on the front lines.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, we were, as a company, trying to navigate through all of this like everyone else,” Jennifer Brzycki, executive assistant at Closet Factory Colorado, said.
The branch’s vice president, Doug Lestikow, and his wife, Brooke, recognized that it was “time to step back and … give back to the community,” Brzycki said. They introduced a plan to call for nominations for local nurses who were on the front lines of the pandemic. The winner would receive a free closet makeover.
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They received 55 or 60 nominations, Brzycki said, from friends and families of nurses. The Lestikows, including Mark, founder and CEO of Closet Factory Colorado, and Polly, president, poured over the nominations.
“They were all amazing, and really great stories,” Brzycki said. “Some of the stories were very, very moving and tear jerking, and so it was really hard to decide” on one winner. In the end, the Lestikows decided to give away five closets for the Nominate a Nurse program.
“A few of our designers volunteered to do the designs and work with the nurses,” Brzycki said. The closets were valued at between $3,000 and $6,000 and included a walk-in closet redesign.
The branch’s designers were eager to be involved, according to Mark Lestikow. “We feel very fortunate that we were considered an essential company,” he said, “so it’s just kind of a way of saying, ‘We’re blessed to be able to be in business and help people in their regular daily lives.”
Brzycki added, “During tough times, when everybody’s struggling, it was just a little bit of light in their lives.”
