Church group provides kits to help cancer patients cope
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HURON — Seeds that were planted as part of a youth group ministry and mission project have bloomed into a lasting reminder of how the smallest act can be meaningful beyond belief.
Amanda Roberts, the seventh grade teacher of First United Methodist Church’s Wednesday Night Alive group, and her students were looking for an outreach project last year. Many ideas were floated in the group, but then someone suggested creating what became the FUMC Chemo Kits.
Her group made six of the kits over the year, and the need for more has spilled over into the church’s vacation Bible school, which begins Sunday. Registration for VBS is still open and kids need not be a church member to participate.
“The kids got to talking and it turned out that many of them had a friend or family member who had been touched by cancer,” Roberts said. “We started with a fleece blanket, and then the kids shared things that had been important to the person they knew, while they were going through chemotherapy. It kind of grew from there.”
The first five kits were delivered to the chemotherapy department at Huron Regional Medical Center, where they quickly found appreciative recipients. About that time, church member Ted Schlecter was diagnosed and began chemo treatments, spurring the group to quickly assemble another Chemo Kit. Schlecter had been involved with the Christian Education area of the church for several years, so there was a connection with the kids.
“It was kind of a dose of reality too,” current church Christian Ed director Jared Cass said.
The students, with the assistance of Roberts, her daughter Emma and Elaine Bales, tied fleece lap blankets for the kits. Bales used her sewing expertise to create small zipper bags in which the students put a package of tissues, hard candy, chapstick, a bottle of water, some hand sanitizer and a journal.
All of the items are designed to lessen the hardship of chemotherapy sessions for patients, which can last up to four hours.
The students also created a letter, which accompanies each kit, describing the meaning of each item and confirming that each has been prayed over and blessed for them.
A short prayer is also inserted in the kit, for the patient to retain and read through, to gain a bit of comfort.
Next is a sampling of items that make up each kit.
Next, tying the edges of the fleece blankets became part of the fun activities for the First United Methodist Church’s Wednesday Night Alive class.
And next, members of the First United Methodist Church’s Wednesday Night Alive seventh-grade class delivered the first batch of Chemo Kits to HRMC this past spring, taking a moment to offer a prayer in the treatment room, for those who will be using the kits.