HOULTON, Maine — Honoring the memory of a former classmate, students at Houlton Elementary School have been busy over the past month collecting items for cancer patients in the hopes of making a difference in the world.
The Kenna Cares Bag project is in memory of MaKenna Ward, the 6-year-old daughter of Kirk and Amy Ward of Houlton who passed away Dec. 29 after a lengthy battle with a rare form of cancer.
Care bags were purchased and filled with goodies for children who are undergoing chemotherapy at the Cancer Care Center in Brewer. On Friday, students at HES stuffed 70 bags with items to be dropped off.
“The idea was a joint effort between my sister and I,” said Sarah Estabrook, a first-grade teacher at the school. “It started out small and has grown into an enormous project that will be run community-wide in the years to follow.”
Estabrook’s sister, Amber Brown, is a director for Thirty-One, a company that sells a variety of bags, organizational supplies and gifts.
“She had wanted to do something to honor our four grandparents, who had all passed away from cancer and/or cancer related illnesses,” Estabrook said. “She heard about an idea other directors in her company had used, known as Chemotherapy Comfort bags. The concept consisted of individuals purchasing bags from Thirty-One and then Amber used any profits she made from the sale to purchase items to go in the bags such as a fleece blanket, fuzzy socks, hard candy, Chapstick, lotion, germ-ex and tissues. Bags specified for children would have a stuffed animal in the bags. The bags would then be delivered to the Cancer Care in Brewer to be given to individuals on their first day of chemotherapy treatment.”
Her sister contacted her to see if she was interested in purchasing a bag.
“Knowing that we had just lost Makenna Ward at our school and that I was connected with the family she wondered if I wanted to purchase a bag in Kenna’s memory or if any other teachers who were close to Kenna and her family would want to purchase a bag,” Estabrook said. “All the bags would be delivered to Cancer Care Center of Maine in Brewer where Kenna received treatments for neuroblastoma for four years.”
Estabrook told her sister she would see if any of the staff was interested, and thought they would be able to come up with about a dozen bags. The response was immediate.
“I sold eight bags in a matter of minutes,” Estabrook said. “I got goosebumps and knew that this had true potential to be something much bigger, but had less than 48 hours to sell the bags before the promotion on these particular bags ended.”
She sent out a mass email to Houlton Elementary School, which proved another immediate response and that email was then forwarded to other schools in the district. In 40 hours, a total of 70 bags had been sold.
It was then that she decided that the name of the bags should be changed in order to better honor MaKenna. Thus, the Kenna Cares bag was born.
“After selling 70 bags, which far exceeded our initial goal we now had the challenge of filling all the bags, as the profits made from the bags was not enough to cover all of the materials we’d need to fill them,” she explained. “But once again everything fell into place. The community found out about the bags and through mass emails, the work of many businesses, volunteer groups and organizations, the help from other area schools in Hodgdon and Presque Isle, as well as the help and talent from many individuals we not only filled the bags … we overfilled the bags with a multitude of supplies we never thought was possible.”
Items such as homemade quilts from County Comfort Quilts, fleece blankets from many individuals and Books Are Fun, coloring books, small games, markers, colored pencils, nail polish, Matchbox cars, Play-Doh, quilted pillowcases from Cricket Comforts, puzzles, books donated from area teachers, stuffed animals and crayons from Aid for Kids were among the items that started pouring in.
“This bloomed from a small idea to a reality that was not only a huge success this year, but will also be repeated yearly, as Kenna Cares bags will continue on in the years to come,” Estabrook said.
Amy and Kirk Ward, Kenna’s parents were completely unaware of this project until after the 70 bags had been sold, but they were thrilled by the idea.
The bags were delivered to the Cancer Care Center on Tuesday, April 22.
“Kenna had told her mom a month before she passed away that she wanted to help kids and more specifically that she wanted to help kids with cancer and she was asking her mom how she could do it,” Estabrook said. “Kenna truly guided this project and it is a joy to help make her dreams come true.”
