(COLORADO) — A girl with a penchant for pickles now has a menu item named after her in the cafeteria at Children’s Hospital Colorado, after she saw an opportunity for change.
According to Children’s Colorado, 13-year-old Allyson had been living with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, also known as HLHS, until about four months ago when she found out she was getting a donor heart.
“Recovery from a heart transplant can be quite lengthy, meaning a lot of time in the hospital after surgery — which also means eating a lot of cafeteria food,” Children’s Colorado said.
And that’s where Allyson discovered a disappointing lack of fried pickles, something she loves and knows other people love, too.
“I love salty foods, but after my surgery nothing on the menu sounded good. So, I thought to myself, ‘how do I make a change? I know — I’ll come up with a petition!'” Allyson said.
So Allyson drafted up a petition, and Children’s Hospital said her entire care team jumped on board solving this particular pickle.
“Between Allyson’s persuasion and support from nurses, doctors and other Children’s Colorado team members, Allyson was able to collect more than 250 signatures advocating to get fried pickles on the cafeteria menu,” the hospital said.
Allyson didn’t just succeed at gathering signatures–she excelled. The final signed petition was longer than Allyson is tall!
After the signatures were gathered, Allyson’s petition was then delivered to the food services team at Children’s Colorado. Within a few days, Allyson had a handful of different fried pickle recipes to try, hand-delivered to her room.
Once the final recipe decision was made, the food services team made it official: every four weeks, “Allyson’s fried pickles” have a spot on the menu.
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