Monson girl salutes Northern Light Health workers 

When employees at Northern Light Health locations in the county arrived on Friday, April 17 they were greeted with signs featuring messages of encouragement amidst the coronavirus pandemic such as “heros work here” and “you are champions.” The healthcare workers soon learned the gratitude messages had been posted during the early morning hours by Makayla Goodrich, 12 of Monson.

Goodrich, a sixth-grader at the Greenville Consolidated School whose mother Jennifer Goodrich, CMPE is vice president of finance and practice operations at Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital and Mayo Hospital, said she saw a thank you video from Northern Light Health President/CEO Tim Dentry and this message and images of other gratitude signs inspired her to make some of her own. Goodrich wanted to recognize “people who work at the hospital, they have been doing all this hard work to make sure people are feeling better and safe.”

Contributed photo
SIGN FOR THE TIMES — Makayla Goodrich, 12 of Monson, thanked Northern Light Health employees in Dover-Foxcroft, Greenville and Sangerville with signs containing messages of gratitude. Goodrich and her mother posted a dozen signs during the early morning hours of Friday, April 17.

A dozen signs were put together with Goodrich coming up with the various inspirational messages herself. The process went by quickly. “Not very long, a couple of hours I think,” she said.

Rising at 3 a.m., Goodrich and her mother got to work erecting the signs before the sun came up. They were in Greenville at 4 o’clock, Dover-Foxcroft an hour later and at the Northern Light Health Center in Sangerville a little after 5 a.m. 

Goodrich said she hoped the employees all had their days brightened by feeling appreciated for the work they are doing.

At first the identity of the sign maker was a secret, but later in the morning a picture of Goodrich at the CA Dean campus was sent in to agency officials and soon many knew it had been her at work under the cover of darkness.

A post on the Northern Light Facebook page that afternoon said, “It’s people like 12-year-old Makayla Goodrich of Monson who inspire us to come to work every day and serve our communities, no matter what challenges we may face. Makayla showed her appreciation for caregivers in Piscataquis County by staying up late last night to make these wonderful signs, and with her mom’s help, put them out at CA Dean Hospital, Mayo Hospital and Northern Light Health Center — Sangerville before the crack of dawn this morning. One of Makayla’s signs says ‘real superheroes wear scrubs.’ We agree with this completely, but it’s generous people like Makayla who are our superheroes.”