Foundation's satchels carry message of hope to cancer patients
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Handmade bags from The Satchels of Caring Foundation contain helpful items such as head scarves and coupons for turbans for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
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The Satchels of Caring Foundation provides a "full circle of giving" for volunteers who make the satchels and those who receive them, says foundation president Heather Knuth.
The satchels, filled with useful items like head scarves, coupons good for turbans, and journals, go to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, who often write much-appreciated thank-you notes.
"One of the things that makes us be able to continue the program is to get a thank you from a person you've never met, and they say you reached them at a dark time in their life and made them feel so blessed that people cared when they'd never met them," said Ms. Knuth, a breast cancer survivor.
"We feel we get just as much making [the bags] as others do getting and receiving a bag. ... A lot of people who help find it's a therapeutic way of feeling they're making a difference."
The foundation has made and distributed more than 6,000 satchels since Pittsburgh CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) took on helping women's chemo patients with headgear and inspirational items in connection with the American Cancer Society's Look Good Feel Better program in 2003.
Most of the satchels distributed have been beautiful and feminine hand-sewn shoulder bags of colorful fabrics and trim. Besides the scarf, turban coupon and journal, their contents include such items as a knitted cap (in season), a bookmark, a booklet of inspirational quotes, a relaxation CD, notecards, and helpful brochures from cancer-related agencies.
But last year, the foundation also began limited distribution of a men's satchel that was the Eagle Scout project of South Fayette teenager Alex Speidel. They are available only by personal request and at the Cancer Caring Center, in Bloomfield, and the Arnold Palmer Pavilion at Mountain View, in Greensburg.
The women's bag, in contrast, is distributed by 10 hospitals and agencies to patients in 12 counties.
"When we first started this mission, it was for women. ... That's what we feel we do best," Ms. Knuth said. "That's where we've made inroads and contacts. Men are just a little bit different. There are different distributors and clinical people. We grow by baby steps, so this is our first inroads into supporting men."
The men's satchel itself, a manufactured item, is a small, black duffel-type bag that Alex got donated to the foundation. "We tried to take the contents [of the women's bags] and modify them for men, but some things can't be modified, like the knitted cap," Ms. Knuth said.
First Published May 23, 2011 12:00 am
