1 Story The Human Connection 7 Million Pajamas and Books
my name is genevieve peturo
but i always wanted to be mary tyler
moore i watched mary
every week she was my idol
she moved to a big city she got a job in
tv
a single independent woman she had a
great apartment
a fabulous best friend they had so many
adventures
and she had the most amazing wardrobe
i wanted it all i wanted that success
i wanted that status and i wanted that
power
and what i came to learn over the next
20 years
was that there was a very different idea
of power that was more impressive
and more meaningful so i was climbing
that corporate ladder
getting all the things that mary had and
after 15 years
of climbing very fast i heard a voice
voice came from here didn’t come from
here
it usually does and the voice asked me
clearly in a whisper if this is the next
30 years of your life
is this enough
wow it rocked me
i sat down and i thought
almost immediately no
i miss something in my very
traditional upbringing italian family
father off the boat mom’s family from
sicily
i was the first born first child first
daughter
that’s me the chubby girl on the right
and it really was
expected that i would yes go to college
but then get married and have children
and that wasn’t my path it was very
traditional get a job
climb the corporate ladder be successful
my father’s work
ethic and my mother’s love
so that voice that day
asking me if this is enough
really made me focus on what i had been
doing
and where i was going and the answer
that came so fast to me
was no you did miss
something and i realized i missed having
my own family
and i missed having children
so i thought what what in the world
could i do
at that point to bring children into my
life
and i watched the news every night
and i read the newspaper every morning
and
i saw pictures and heard stories of the
atrocities that were that belong to the
children
in my town in my city
who were neglected and abandoned and
brought into shelters
and i thought oh my goodness if i could
go and reach those kids at night
maybe i could bring a little peace a
little
normalcy to their lives i don’t know why
that voice came to me i thought i was on
my way
to what i thought would be a fulfilling
life
but it came to me i called the shelters
they were happy to have me come in and i
was thrilled to go in
i had a bag of children’s books i was in
my corporate suit
and i showed up they showed me into a
room
which was bare and the carpets were worn
there wasn’t any place for a grown-up to
sit
so i sat on the floor
i saw little faces at the door
and one by one children were peering in
and one by one my heart was melting a
little more and it was a rush of
emotions i think i’d been climbing so
fast that i didn’t have time to
feel but what i was feeling then was
just i was overcome
one by one that came in they sat on the
floor and i read the stories
week after week that that moment i
arrived and those minutes i spent with
those children were the quietest i had
ever been in my life week after week the
same routine a different shelter
one night i went to see where they were
going to another room
to go to sleep at night and what i saw
broke my heart they had nothing to
change into
they were just futons and cots and the
was as bare as the room i’d been reading
in
and they were all the same in every
shelter
lovely staff but this wasn’t bedtime
my mom made bedtime incredible
we had cookies and milk and story after
story and she’d make up stories
and of course we had pajamas
there weren’t any so
as i was leaving i asked if i could
bring pajamas and they said that’d be
great i brought pajamas next week
sat on the floor read the stories and
one by one i gave out the pajamas to the
kids
i thought they were going to be so
excited but as always they were very
quiet
one little girl wouldn’t take the
pajamas she just shook her head
i didn’t know what was wrong the other
children took the pajamas no problem
went into the room to go to sleep but
not her
she was afraid i didn’t know what what
so i tried one more time she shook her
head no
she wanted to watch me so they let her
watch me off to the side
i handed the rest of the pajamas out and
i walked over to her
i still had the pink pajamas i picked
for her over my shoulder
i went over to her and i knelt down
and i said honey these are for you i
know they’ll fit you they’re pink and
you have pink in your
shirt and her shirt was soiled
and her pants were too short and her
shoes our sneakers were so big
and her ponytails were lopsided so all i
could do was
offer her these clean warm and cozy
new pajamas i made one more attempt
and she looked at me and she said
what are they what are pajamas
she could barely say the word pajamas
i found myself explaining this little
girl
that pajamas are what you change into
they didn’t have to wear your clothes at
night
that was that was it for me
my emotions were running amok they took
her over to the side to the bedroom and
they
changed her into the pajamas and she
gave me a little smile
and that was the beginning of the end as
they say
and that power that i thought was the
all-important answer to everything that
i was looking for
wasn’t and a new a new idea of power
was starting to form i started to tell
people
about her this little girl i told
everybody
and it seemed that everybody who had
been standing with me in front of her
she and i had this connection this human
connection
and then everybody i told this story to
had the same connection not just with me
but with
her somehow the human connection
that whole idea is so powerful
that it stops everybody
in the moment in in the rushing of our
lives
to see and feel that little girl
talk about power so everybody i told
connected with me and with her
and with the same idea that this isn’t
right
day after day word spread
i got a call from a man who started
asking me questions
started asking me why was i doing this
what was i doing where was i getting the
pajamas
what did i think it was going to happen
i thought i was going to get arrested i
didn’t know what he was asking me all
these questions for
and he said do you think this is really
helping
i said that’s all that’s all i can do
and he said it is helping i was a little
boy in an orphanage
and the bedtime was my most frightening
lonely time
and i can tell you i felt love from afar
when i knew someone was thinking about
me and i know these children feel
this love and your compassion from afar
so the human connection was starting
in a small way first with her to me then
with me
and everybody else everybody else to her
and visibly
and more people were being connected
first it was dave then there was
hurricane katrina
i got a call from a man named randy
randy said you’re giving out pajamas to
children what about the children of the
families devastated by hurricane katrina
down south
i have trucks if you have pajamas
wow there’s just a couple of us
doing this now
eleven thousand pairs of pajamas showed
up
at his loading dock and put on those
trucks
and we got down to the houston astrodome
about a connection between all those
people through one man
who had the idea maybe the human
connection would work
got to the door of the houston astrodome
i had made contact with a nurse that was
there i needed
to connect with somebody on that side
and she said we need them desperately
these people have nothing and these
children
some of them are very sick and i’m doing
the best i can but we have a full
dome here bring those pajamas and call
me when you get outside the doors
it was midnight we got outside the doors
i called her
tried to get in before she can get to
the doors the security guard was telling
us no way he wasn’t opening that door
left the truck on the floor
i heard lynn and she knew i was on the
other side of the door
and she knew what we had and i heard her
yelling
at the security guard threatening him
with neglect
if these children didn’t get those
pajamas those clean clothes because they
had been
in soiled and wet clothes
for days those doors opened
and our truck rolled onto the floor and
those children got their pajamas
lynn a stranger a nurse connected to
this
little idea this human connection was
growing
a national magazine heard
about pajamas for children
they wrote an article this big
thousands tens of thousands of boxes and
letters and pajamas and books and cash
showed up at my doorstep i met a great
man
just during that time and i told him
what i was thinking about doing and he
said go for it
connection number 1000 that magazine
touched so many people
that all those boxes kept arriving
it was unbelievable i couldn’t believe
about this invisible
connection then a national show tv show
called
said come on tell the story tell us
about the kids tell us about what we can
do
i went on to the show
what an incredible surprise to know
that everyone in the studio audience was
told
to bring a pair of pajamas
and then get as many as they could in
ways that
were going to be a surprise 32
000 pairs of pajamas
revealed were collected all those people
that human connection and all along
i was still in awe and surprised and
unaware of its power
but there was one more idea
that still was going to come to the
surface soon
20 years
20 years and 7 million pairs of pajamas
and books now
distributed to children across the us
and puerto rico
63 national chapters
in cities and states across the u.s
that power of the human connection
led to a final idea
which is a truth that
i became aware of suddenly
because all through the 20 years people
were saying look at the power of one
look at the power of one people do
things and it’s just an idea and look
it’s a power of one person that’s all we
need one person
and i say no that human connection
is not the power of one it’s the power
of
one another and that power of one
another
moves mountains and moves people