A Little Grace Goes a Long Way

For Women’s Equal­i­ty Day, we’re rec­og­niz­ing the incred­i­ble work of Syd­ney Mey­er, one of our behav­ioral health inter­ven­tion­ists at Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG). Her desire to help oth­ers doesn’t stop with­in the walls of our clin­ic, but con­tin­ues through her non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, Giv­ing Grace.

Mey­er rec­og­nized the chal­lenges faced by those strug­gling to afford even the most basic neces­si­ties and she was inspired to take action. Giv­ing Grace address­es the crit­i­cal short­age of hygiene prod­ucts, par­tic­u­lar­ly affect­ing women in our community.

“I’ve seen how expen­sive basic hygiene prod­ucts can be, and I real­ized I have been blessed enough to nev­er go with­out them in my life. Can you imag­ine life with­out these things?” Mey­er shared. ​“Giv­ing Grace strives to help women in the Quin­cy com­mu­ni­ty feel sup­port­ed and healthy, even if they cur­rent­ly don’t have the means to do this themselves.”

Since Decem­ber of 2020, Giv­ing Grace has part­nered with local orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Qua­na­da, Sal­va­tion Army Home­less Shel­ter, Bel­la Ease, and Hori­zons, to dis­trib­ute hygiene prod­ucts. Togeth­er, they ensure the col­lect­ed essen­tial sup­plies find their way into the hands of those who need them most.

“I hope to con­tin­ue part­ner­ing with amaz­ing orga­ni­za­tions like this and spread­ing the word about Giv­ing Grace’s mis­sion. The more peo­ple who know what we do, the more peo­ple we can help,” Mey­er said.

The orga­ni­za­tion col­lects and dis­trib­utes items includ­ing sham­poo, con­di­tion­er, body wash, tooth­paste and tooth­brush­es, deodor­ant, bras, under­wear, socks, and fem­i­nine hygiene products.

A few times a year, Syd­ney reach­es out to the com­mu­ni­ty for dona­tions through a Face­book fundrais­er in her group called Giv­ing Grace. In 2022, the QMG Foun­da­tion pro­vid­ed a grant for the orga­ni­za­tion to help sup­port Meyer’s efforts.

As she looks to the future, she hopes to broad­en her reach to help more peo­ple. Through her work, she knows that pro­vid­ing these essen­tial items is not just meet­ing an imme­di­ate need for an indi­vid­ual, it’s giv­en them some­thing even more — com­fort and hope.

“I want to leave a pos­i­tive impact on this world. Being both strong in my faith and work­ing as a men­tal health coun­selor at Quin­cy Med­ical Group, I find myself hav­ing com­pas­sion for those strug­gling and want to do my part to help them,” she shared. ​“I want to make my home in the Quin­cy com­mu­ni­ty a place where people/​women feel impor­tant and tak­en care of.”

To learn more, vis­it the Giv­ing Grace Face­book page or email smeyer@​quincymedgroup.​com.